Title: Examining the socio-economic determinants of adoption of the 'Government Gateway' initiative in the UK

Authors: Yogesh Kumar Dwivedi, Anastasia Papazafeiropoulou, Hosein Gharavi, Khalil Khoumbati

Addresses: School of Business and Economics, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, Wales, UK. ' School of Information Systems Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK. ' School of Management Information Systems, Faculty of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. ' School of Information Systems Computing and Mathematics, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK

Abstract: This paper empirically examines the impact of socio-economic determinants upon the adoption of a recent UK e-government initiative, the |Government Gateway|. The data on five socio-economic characteristics was collected employing a postal survey. The findings of this research suggest that the three variables of age, gender and occupation significantly differentiated the adopters from the non-adopters of the Government Gateway, whilst education and income were found to be non-significant. The implications of the findings are discussed in the context of promoting the adoption of emerging Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and reducing the digital divide against less privileged parts of the population.

Keywords: Government Gateway; socio-economic characteristics; citizens; UK; United Kingdom; e-government; electronic government.

DOI: 10.1504/EG.2006.010801

Electronic Government, an International Journal, 2006 Vol.3 No.4, pp.404 - 419

Published online: 04 Sep 2006 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article