The Information Dividend: International Information Well-being Index

Prepared for BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT (formerly known as British Computer Society), by Trajectory Partnership, this report presents an index showing "that access to information technology has a 'statistically significant, positive impact on life satisfaction'." It builds on the report "The Information Dividend: Why IT makes you 'happier'", published in May 2010. It looks at 39 countries and compares the level of satisfaction of citizens with their access to and use of information technology (IT).

In this study, information well-being is defined as the extent to which citizens and consumers are able to use IT to communicate, maintain social ties, and keep informed of events. "Given the importance of a sense of freedom and autonomy in well-being we have constructed an index that incorporates not only the IT access and usage but also two measures of freedom and autonomy. We have called this the 'Information Well-being Index' (IWB) and it is constructed of 11 different indicators..."

The Executive Summary cites the following findings from statistical data formulated in the IWB index:

• "A simple version of the IWB index shows a strong correlation with GDP [gross domestic product], with the wealthier countries tending to lead the ...table. This is largely because these countries have better IT infrastructure. However, a version of the IWB Index that adjusts for GDP shows a remarkably different league table with Zambia leading the way and affluent countries like Japan, France and Germany moving down the rankings (see table 1 page 5).
  
• Those countries that rise up the rankings on the adjusted index are interesting cases because they must be doing something, independent of their affluence, to make sure they get the most out of IT. This may be due to the importance placed on IT within public policy in those countries or other factors.
  
• Countries that fall down the rankings on this measure are underperforming in terms of IWB for a country with their level of affluence. These countries might want to consider why they are not delivering greater benefits from IT to their people."