Stimulus Package Glosses over Digital Divide

Since the campaign season last year, the Digital Wallet has been one of the Pheu Thai Party’s flagship policies, promising 10,000 Baht (US$270) in the form of a digital voucher to every eligible adult aged above 16 years old. Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and his ministers have long insisted that Thailand’s economy is in “crisis”, and thus needs a large-scale stimulus package. According to them, the handouts would jump-start the crippling domestic economy by boosting people’s purchasing power and incentivising them to buy from local stores.

Pheu Thai’s controversial digital wallet scheme has been criticised from many angles, including the lack of fiscal responsibility and problems with an associated “super-app” associated with the scheme. One additional aspect, however, has not been talked about: a possible failure to reach out to potential beneficiaries due to the lack of internet connection or access to smartphones. The issue of the digital divide has been overlooked by the government.

From an efficiency standpoint, the Bank of Thailand has raised several concerns about the development of a new mobile application associated with the digital wallet, citing that it overlaps with existing applications and the fact that there is not enough lead time to fully test it. The “Super App” is being developed by the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES) and the Digital Government Development Agency (DGA) with an open-loop solution to facilitate transactions. While the Ministry of Finance has mentioned a plan to assist those without a smartphone to access the programme, it did not go into specific details on its implementation.  

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Khon-La-Kheung (“Let’s go halves”) co-payment stimulus programme was roundly criticised. The complicated e-identification process and e-payment difficulties underscored the issue of uneven technological adaptation and the digital divide. These issues persist, as illustrated by information and communications technology (ICT) indicators available from the National Statistics Office of Thailand (NSO). While the indicators do not measure the quality of the internet connection or distinguish whether mobile phones are smartphones with access to the internet, they give more granularity to the digital divide at both regional and municipal levels.

According to nationwide data from the third quarter of 2023, 90 per cent of the country’s households have access to the internet, whereas 97 per cent have a mobile phone. This amounts to about 21 million and 23 million households, respectively. These are impressive figures. However, disparity emerges when the data is disaggregated into regions, as shown in Table 1 below.

Regional Areas Lag Behind Bangkok

Table 1: Percentage of Households with Internet and Mobile Phone, by Region (total households in thousands)

Region	Internet Connection		Mobile Phone
	Connected (%)	Not Connected (%)	Have (%)	None (%)
Whole Kingdom (N=23,954)	90.9	9.1	97.0	3.0
Bangkok (N=3,112)	97.1	2.9	98.5	1.5
Central Region (N=7,855)	92.9	7.1	98.2	1.8
Northern Region (N=3,935)	84.2	15.8	95.0	5.0
Northeastern Region (N=5,960)	89.1	10.9	96.15	3.8
Southern Region (N=3,089)	91.9	8.1	96.7	3.3

The table shows that while Bangkok outperforms the country’s average on both indicators, the northern region is suboptimally connected. In fact, it lags Bangkok levels by 5.8 percentage points on internet connection and 2.1 percentage points on mobile phone ownership. In absolute terms, there will be at least 818,000 households in the North which cannot participate in the Digital Wallet scheme because they do not have access to the internet or mobile phones. The other areas in Thailand — the central, northeastern and southern regions — report higher figures than the North. Still, their connectivity and mobile phone penetration levels lag Bangkok’s.

There is also an observable difference between rural and urban areas (municipal vs non-municipal areas). Nationally, 94 per cent of the households in municipal areas have access to the internet, higher than 88 per cent in non-municipal areas. The difference is less discernible for mobile phone ownership. Levels in municipal areas stand at 98 per cent, slightly higher than 96 per cent in non-municipal areas. Overall, the data already indicates two digital divides: one between Bangkok and regional areas, the second between urban and rural areas. This can render the campaign inaccessible to some segments of the population. It is also important to note that last year’s merging of the two telecommunication giants may further exacerbate the divides since it has already been pointed out by experts that Thais have been paying more for lower quality mobile subscriptions since the acquisition.

When Age Matters

Table 2: Percentage of Eligible Adults with Access to ICT Nationwide (Numbers are in thousands and percentages are categorised by age group)

Age Group	Using Internet		Using Mobile Phone
	Connected (%)	Not Connected (%)	Have (%)	None (%)
15-19 (N=4,339)	99.3	0.7	99.5	0.5
20-24 (N=5,021)	98.6	1.4	99.2	0.8
25-29 (N=5,279)	98.9	1.1	99.2	0.8
30-34 (N=4,945)	98.8	1.2	99.2	0.8
35-39 (N=4,759)	98.1	1.9	98.9	1.1
40-49 (N=10,463)	96.2	3.8	98.4	1.6
50-59 (N=10,664)	89.0	11.0	97.4	2.6
60+ (N=13,259)	56.3	43.7	83.3	16.7

Based on Table 2, which uses the data from 2022, the digital divide is also driven by age. While teenagers and middle-aged people (15-49 years old) appear to be digitally active and connected, the older generations (50 years old and above) are left behind with lower levels of connectivity and access to mobile phones. This is most marked for Thais who are 60 years and above, with Internet connectivity running at 56.3 per cent and mobile phone penetration at 83.3 per cent. This means that the digital wallet programme may overlook the majority of the population as Thailand ages. The oldest age group (60 years and above) shows that approximately 11.5 million people will be left out of the programme because they do not have access to the Internet and/ or a mobile phone.

Similar to its predecessor, Khon-La-Kheung, the Digital Wallet scheme appears to ignore the micro-level digital divide that might be obscured by the formidable macro-level indicators. Specifically, the persistent pattern of division among the country’s regions in terms of connectivity and age-based disparity in ICT adoption has been glossed over by the oft-cited statistics that the majority of Thais are digitally connected. Without taking the digital divide into consideration in stimulus package design, some of the most affected segments of the population who truly need assistance will once again be unable to access it.

In the short-term, the government should explore offline options for handouts to the poorer regions and older age groups. For instance, citizens with proper identification should be verified and gain access to the programme at local banks near them. In the long run, a way to make digital infrastructure and access more equitable across regions that go beyond the existing Village Broadband Internet Project (called Net Pracharat in Thai) should also be considered. If the government aims to pursue its e-government goals and push citizens to go online for public services, it is important to ensure that data plans on mobile phones are affordable to most, if not all, segments of the population.

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