Investigation of the number of information technology products owned by households: A count data model

The aim of this study is to investigate the factors that determine number of information technology products owned by both adults and children between the ages of 6 and 15 across Turkey and its urban and rural areas by using Information and Communication Technology Usage Survey on Households 2013, and count data model. This study is the first empirical investigation on the number of information technology products owned by children as well as adults in Turkish households The most important factors affecting the use of information technology products in households are the household's income, age, gender, educational level, profession and the residential area. Besides these factors, this research use the length of computer and internet use in year, frequency of internet use and purpose of computer use in the analyses. The number of information technology products owned in the households within the specified periods is expressed as count variable in this study, and Poisson Quasi Maximum Likelihood Estimation Method is utilized in the models of information technology product number. In addition, Bootstrap technique is used to ascertain the validity of the estimates. Standard errors estimated by Robust Poisson regression model and Bootstrap technique are compared. The analyses carried out in this study reveal that the number of information technology products owned by the children and adults in Turkey increase from the east to the west and from the rural areas to the urban areas. As the ages of children increase, the number of information technology products owned by children decreases while the number increases for adults. In addition, educational level does not have a meaningful and considerable effect on the number of information technology products owned by children whereas increase in educational level of the adults has a positive and significant effect on the number. Moreover, it is observed that number of information technology products owned by both adults and children increases in line with the increase in household income.