ICT Spendingby Households Across Income Deciles in Urban and Rural Areas

Given the importance and role ofICTin enhancing people’s abilities and skills, studying the households expenditures on ICT products is important.The present paper identifies theICTrelated items in households’ budget by comparing different categories of products. We calculate the households’ spending on ICT indifferent income deciles for the rural and urban household in Iran for the period 2004-2015. The results show that there is a significant gap on level of ICT spendingand their share in household consumption basket between rural and urban families. In addition, there is a significant gap on level and share of ICT spendingbetween low-income and high-income deciles. It is also observed that after emergence of an inflationary era in mid-2000s and a stagnation period in theearly 2010s, the share of ICT spendingin family budgets has declined. Given the nature of ability-enhancement of ICT products and their role in income distribution and sustained growth and development, it is necessary for the policy-makers to pay attention to the gap between deciles and between rural and urban families and also to the recent decline of share of ICT spending.