Home Digital Access as a Channel and Multiplier of Socioeconomic Inequality in Mathematics: Evidence from the Philippines in PISA 2022
Abstract
The Philippines did not administer the optional PISA 2022 ICT Familiarity Questionnaire, so we examine the one technology measure available for all students — home ICT resources (ICTRES) — as a marker of the digital divide. Using PISA 2022 microdata for the Philippines (analytic N ≈ 5,821 with complete covariates; ten plausible values; eighty Fay balanced repeated replication weights pooled by Rubin's rules), we ask whether home ICT access is associated with mathematics literacy net of socio-economic and school background, and whether it statistically channels and amplifies the socio-economic gap. Home ICT access was strongly associated with mathematics (about 14 score points per index unit, roughly 17 per standard deviation) and robust to a learning-during-disruption block. It statistically accounted for approximately 30% of the association between occupational status and mathematics, and the status-by-access interaction was positive and significant, indicating that the achievement return to access is larger at higher socio-economic status. Home digital access therefore appears to operate as both a statistical channel and a multiplier of educational inequality. The findings provide a pre-generative-AI baseline for understanding how unequal digital resources may shape future technology-supported learning.