17.23 E-government use in Canada.
Electronic government (e-government) provides digital means, such as an email address or a website, for citizens to contact public officials. The vision behind e-government is to create a more citizen-focused government. One study used survey data to determine what factors are related to a citizen using an e-government website rather than visiting or calling a government office.7 The dependent variable refers to whether the citizen used the website or not. Explanatory variables include sex (1 = female, 0 =male), daily Internet use (1 = yes, 0=no), age (six ordered categories numbered 1 through 6), household income (seven ordered categories numbered 1 through 7), size of the community (six ordered categories numbered 1 through 6), and education (1 = at least some postsecondary education, 0 = other). The following table summarizes the results.
Explanatory variable | Odds ratio |
Sex | 0.87 |
Daily Internet use | 4.16 |
Age | 0.81 |
Income | 1.01 |
Size | 0.85 |
Education | 0.97 |
Intercept | 0.66 |
All but “Education” and “Income” were significant at the 0.05 level.
17.23
(a) Females are 0.87 times as likely (13% less likely) to use the website as males. Daily Internet users are 4.16 times as likely to use the website as their counterparts. Older-aged people are less likely to use the website than younger-aged people. Those from larger communities are less likely to use the website than those from smaller communities. Those with different incomes and/or educations are about equally likely to use the website because they aren't significantly different from 1. (b) , Daily Internet use: 1.4255, , Income: 0.01, , , . (c) 0.6537.