Digitally Savvy at the Home Office. Computer Skills of Older Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic Across Europe

Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Authors
König, Ronny
Author (Corporation)
Publication date
26.04.2022
Typ of student thesis
Course of study
Type
01A - Journal article
Editors
Editor (Corporation)
Supervisor
Parent work
Frontiers in Sociology
Special issue
DOI of the original publication
Link
Series
Series number
Volume
7
Issue / Number
Pages / Duration
Patent number
Publisher / Publishing institution
Frontiers
Place of publication / Event location
Edition
Version
Programming language
Assignee
Practice partner / Client
Abstract
Digital skills can be a valuable resource in work life, especially in such times as the current COVID-19 pandemic, during which working from home has become new reality. Although increasing numbers of older employees (aged 50 years and above) are using digital technologies to work remotely, many of these older adults still have generally lower digital skills. Whether the pandemic will be a push factor for the acquisition of computer skills in late working life remains unclear. This study investigated the explanatory factors of the computer skills gained by older workers who were working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, using representative data for 28 countries from the Survey of Health, Aging and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The analysis of the survey responses of 11,042 employed persons aged 50 years and older revealed that, 13% worked only at home due to the pandemic, while 15% said they worked at home and in their usual workplace. The descriptives indicate that full-time homeworking is more of an option among those with tertiary education and who already have some computer skills. Of the older employees who worked only at home, 36% reported an improvement in their computer skills, whereas of the older workers who worked at home and at their usual workplaces, only 29% reported such an improvement. Our results based on logistic regressions suggest that significantly more women, younger employees, respondents with tertiary educational qualifications, and those whose work was not affected by unemployment or even business closure acquired new computer skills, regardless of whether they were working permanently or only partly from home. The study underlines the importance of investigating the possible digital skills gained from the home office situation resulting from the pandemic.
Keywords
home office, Corona, COVID-19, digital skills, Europe, older adults, SHARE
Project
Event
Exhibition start date
Exhibition end date
Conference start date
Conference end date
Date of the last check
ISBN
ISSN
2297-7775
Language
English
Created during FHNW affiliation
Yes
Strategic action fields FHNW
Publication status
Published
Review
Peer review of the complete publication
Open access category
Gold
License
'https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/'
Citation
König, R., & Seifert, A. (2022). Digitally Savvy at the Home Office. Computer Skills of Older Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic Across Europe. Frontiers in Sociology, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2022.858052

Version History

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
VersionDateSummary
2*
2023-02-23 06:20:39
Volltext und Lizenz
2023-02-13 14:51:47
* Selected version