Attitudes of European older workers towards digitalisation from the ecological perspective

Abstract

The dynamic processes of automation and digitalisation rapidly transform the labour market. Better adaptation to these processes at the individual level relies on knowledge and perceptions of the situation, as reflected by attitudes in large-scale data. This paper combines the theory of the digital divide, which focuses on inequalities, with the ecological perspective providing a framework for studying how attitudes towards digitalisation are connected to several micro-, meso-, and macro-factors. The topic is addressed with data from the Eurobarometer via multilevel regression analysis of respondents nested in contexts, focusing on the attitudes of older workers towards the impact of digitalisation and their differences indicating the digital divide. Generally, digitalisation of work is perceived rather positively, with large differences between groups of individuals. New technologies are consistently perceived more negatively by workers that are older, have lower skills, work in manual jobs, live in a village, and do not support the EU, whilst other characteristics show more complex relationships. Moreover, attitudes towards the digitalisation of work are more negative in contexts characterised by higher unemployment, lower prevalence of training for older workers, and a lower level of digitalisation. The paper discusses the need to identify groups of older workers with a more negative approach to technologies and develop appropriate policies to reduce the digital divide and the potential exclusion of these groups from the labour market.