Did you know that, ‘ Digitalization ‘ is the major vanguard of Modernization ? Then, tail me solemnly through this article, as i adduce to you a catalogue of the whys and wherefores of it. Modernization theory holds that as Nations/Countries/Societies become more economically modernized, more well heeled and more educated, their political institutions become progressively liberal democratic.The “classical” theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s, most tellingly articulated by Seymour Lipset, drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, and saw a renascence after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama penned about the coda of the Cold War as corroboration on modernization theory.
The first principle of ” Modernization Theory ” is ‘ Digitalization ‘, which asserts that, technological change is the pivotal driver of ontogeny. Technological modification along with population upping amounts to more wealth, more wealth leads to a larger middle class, and a larger middle class provides the social footing for democracy. After Mao Zedong had exacerbated China’s economy when he resorted to communism and led the Chinese into economic scrape, the man who emerged to tumble this albatross was Deng Xiaoping. He introduced a plan earmarked ” Four Modernizations ” and which the polestar was on four bourn areas of industrial modernization : science and technology (Digitalization), agriculture and industry. Through this scheme, China’s crumpled economy grew in New York minute.
The expeditious economic growth of China and United States of America isn’t because, they have better institutions, leaders, policies etc than us, but it is because of their propensity to hierarchize ‘ digitalization ‘ as the prime trajectory for sweeping and mounting economic advancement. Over the past decade, China’s digital economy has reaped unco prodigious milestones. According to arithmetics done by a research group at Peking University, the digital economy sector chipped in pregnantly, with a 74.4% contribution to the country’s GDP extension from 2012 to 2018. Furthermore, according to the 2022 China Internet Development Report, the scale of China’s digital economy peaked 45.5 trillion Yuan in 2021, accounting for 39.8% of the GDP. All underscore the pivotal function of the digital economy in China’s economic development.
The brisk digitization wave has given leap to a slew of emerging employment opportunities in China. In 2019 and 2020, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China (MOHRSS) initiated two sets of 29 new occupations, with over 75% of these métiers directly related to the digital economy. Therefore, digital economy has played a substantial role in accelerating annual climb in residents’ income.
America is the global digital economy leader. The digital economy accounts for $3.70 trillion of gross output, bears $1.24 trillion of compensation, and over 18 million jobs. Digital trade facilitates more effective access to international markets for American small businesses, farmers, ranchers, service companies and manufacturers, who rely on the global reach of a range of U.S. technology providers to cut the mustard. Between 2002 and 2016, the shares of U.S. jobs which obligate elemental digital knowledge rose precipitately, mostly due to pharaonic alterations in the digital content of existing occupations. Workers of every stripe—from corporate finance officers to sales people to utility workers and nurses—are now spending sizable portions of their workdays using tools that require digital deftness.
In 2002, 56 percent of the jobs studied necessitated measly amounts of digital skills. Nearly 40 percent of jobs required medium digital skills and just 5 percent compelled high digital adroitness. A lot has changed. By 2016, the share of jobs prescribing high digital skills had parachuted to 23 percent. The share proffering medium digital skills soared to 48 percent. And in a hulking shift, the share of jobs requiring low digital skills descended from 56 to 30 percent.
Digitalization scores rocketed in 517 of 545 analyzed occupations from 2002 to 2016. At the same time, the degree and pace of change has varied expansively. The average digitalization score across all occupations upped from a moderate level of 29 in 2002 to a medium level of 46 in 2016, a 57 percent upswing. Between 2010 and 2016, occupations with high-level digital scores on average registered more than 0.8 percent wage growth annually, equated to middle-level annual wage hike of 0.3 percent, versus annual wage ebbs of 0.2 percent for low – level occupations. Congress has weighed in with lucid advice and ambitious negotiating objectives to mentor the Administration to lubricate digital trade, enable cross-border data flows, and recognize the consequence of the Internet in international trade. The NFTC is committed to advocating for an open, rules-based digital economy at home and abroad to fortify U.S. exports of well over $500 billion in digital services every year.
Digitalization provides a degree of aegis for workers against task displacement through automation. While nearly 60 percent of labours discharged in low-digital occupations appear susceptible to automation, only around 30 percent of tasks in highly digital occupations appear liable to automation. Digitalization expedites development, aids economic growth, coalesce people from non – identical territorial backgrounds and enables better use of resources.The European Investment Bank has vouched for Digitalization , such that, in 2021, their financing assisted to boost new digital business models, connected 3.5 million households to fixed fibre and sanctioned 6.8 million subscriptions for 5G services. Last year, among others, the Bank secured financing for the digitalization of motorway infrastructure in Morocco and the augmentation of the national broadband in rural areas of Georgia.
Benoit Dennis, a senior economist on digital projects at the European Investment Bank evinced, ” Digitalisation is the great leveller of opportunities”.
This is why, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia intends to transform Ghana into digital economy in order to parallel with those well – economically planted countries _ let’s incarnate his (Dr. Bawumia’s) digitalization timber for unyielding economic opulence.
By : Prof. Dinkum.
(The Buzzing Rapine of Erudition)
E – mail : dinkumchoice@gmail.com
