Although full-time employment has no significant effect on Internet access over the past three months, it appears to have a negative effect on Internet access from home. These results may seem puzzling at first, but they are readily explained when we look at the effects of being selfemployed on home Internet access. Each employment category is coded as a dichotomous variable (either the respondent is employed full-time or not). In fact, it is because these categories are mutually exclusive that a number of concurrent models were examined, each one analyzing the effect of a particular employment status.

We see that Internet access from home in the 2000 survey is positively correlated with respondents who indicate they are self-employed. This would mean that the composite of all other categories would be negatively correlated, including respondents who are employed on fulltime basis.

The bottom line on employment status is that for the most part, when combined with the effects from other key demographic characteristics, it has little influence either way on the odds of being an Internet user. The results from the 2000 survey indicate that, when other key demographic characteristics are accounted for, the likelihood of having access from home increases among respondents who are self-employed.

Level of access and employment status

The logistic regression analysis that examines the likelihood of having had recent Internet access or access to the Internet at home provides valuable information about the contribution of the demographic characteristics to the changes in the level of access. However, the complex analysis that incorporates age, gender, education, income level, location and employment status may be a little overwhelming and at times confusing. For instance, the results illustrating that full-time employment status has a negative effect on the probability of access from home is somewhat counter-intuitive, especially when we do not offset these results with the combined effect of age and income.