Assessing the Importance of ICT on High-Educated Poverty in East Java Using Random Forest Methods

Abstract

Poverty is one of the main issues in the economic development of a country, including Indonesia. This was exacerbated when the Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on economic activities, so there are educated people who are still below the poverty line. Therefore, strategies in tackling the problem of poverty need to be developed in line with the times that have entered the era of digitalization. The research aimed to examine the importance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on high-educated poverty in East Java. Data obtained from the National Survey in Indonesia is analyzed with the random forest algorithm as a classification method in machine learning. The analysis shows that social media, laptop ownership, age, higher education, and internet access are the five most important variables for high-educated poverty classification in East Java. Based on this, a number of recommendations can be made to policy makers regarding the effect of digitalization on high-educated poverty in East Java.