Do Home Digital Resources Bridge or Widen the Achievement Gap? Evidence from PISA 2022 in Latin America and the Caribbean

Governments across Latin America and the Caribbean have invested heavily in home devices and connectivity, yet whether these resources narrow or widen socioeconomic achievement gaps remains unclear. Using Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2022 microdata from 13 education systems (N = 89,339), this study examines whether home digital resources (ICTRES) moderate the socioeconomic gradient (ESCS) in mathematics and reading, using plausible values, multiple imputation, and Fay-corrected replicate weights. The results point to amplification rather than compensation: the ESCS × ICTRES interaction was positive in mathematics (β = 2.90) and reading (β = 1.83), and the mathematics gradient rose from 9.05 points at low ICTRES to 15.57 at high ICTRES. This pattern held when ESCS was residualized on ICTRES. Adding ICTRES reduced the baseline mathematics gradient (19.46 points) by 37.0%, but this attenuation largely reflects variance shared by two partially overlapping indices, so the accompanying decomposition is reported only descriptively. Country gradients ranged from 12.02 points (Dominican Republic) to 22.13 (Chile), with significant cross-national heterogeneity. These cross-sectional associations show that more home technology is not, by itself, accompanied by narrower socioeconomic gaps; read alongside prior intervention research, they suggest that access-only digital equity policies are unlikely to close them.