MULTICRITERIA EVALUATION OF THE USE OF ICT IN RURAL AREAS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES IN 2018

Aneta Becker1, Jarosław Becker2
1 Faculty of Economics, West Pomeranian University of Technology, 2 Faculty of Technology, Jacob of Paradyz University in Gorzów Wielkopolski
https://doi.org/10.22630/ESARE.2019.3.4
Becker, Aneta; ORCID: 0000-0001-6498-078X (Faculty of Economics, West Pomeranian University of Technology)
Becker, Jarosław; ORCID: 0000-0001-7178-8569 (Faculty of Technology, Jacob of Paradyz University in Gorzów Wielkopolski)
MULTICRITERIA EVALUATION OF THE USE OF ICT IN RURAL AREAS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION COUNTRIES IN 2018
Economic Sciences for Agribusiness and Rural Economy, 2019, vol., nr 3, s. 38-45

Słowa kluczowe

level of ICT use natural person rural areas European Union MCDA AHP

JEL Classification

C38 O35

Streszczenie

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are becoming more accessible and more widely used indifferent areas of socio-economic activity and in various territories, including rural areas. There is a noticeableincrease in the interest of rural residents in modern technologies, especially those supporting communication.At the same time, it should be noted that despite the small level of ICT skills and competences, ruralareas have great potential that can be expressed in: human resources, the natural environment biodiversity,and raw materials. Therefore, rural areas in Europe should be similar in terms of the use of ICT and shouldnot differ from the level observed in urban areas.The article presents the use of the AHP method (Analytic Hierarchy Process) for multicriteria decision analysisof the use of ICT by natural persons living in rural areas of the European Union (EU), in 2018. The empiricalmaterial used in the research came from the resources of the European Statistical Office (Eurostat).The result of the survey is the ranking of 27 EU countries (Great Britain was omitted). The obtained resultsshowed large disproportions in the use of ICT in rural areas between the countries of the European Union.In the extreme case, between Denmark being the leader of the ranking and Bulgaria, which was in the 27thplace, this differences amounted to 70.7%.

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