Getting closer to the digital divide: an analysis of impacts on digital competencies based on the German PIAAC sample

Abstract

This paper takes an intersectional perspective to investigate the effect of socio-demographic variables that may constitute to digital divide. The concept of digital divide emerged from a perspective on unequal access to digital technology and relates nowadays primarily the differences in the competencies necessary to handle this technology. To investigate digital divide, the present paper uses the PIAAC framework of digital competencies which is called problem solving in technology-rich environments (PS-TRE). It introduces the approach of intersectionality that describes persons impaired by multiple inequalities. The paper analyzes the impact of these factors on PS-TRE for three subsamples of the German study: (1) employed people who use computers at work and at home, (2) employed people who use computers only at home, and (3) people that are out of the labor force. It analyzes furthermore contributions to digital divide by a comparison of these impacts with literacy and numeracy scores. While employed people with computer use at work and home only had generation as a factor for constituting digital divide, employed people with computer use only at home had migration background as a further factor. Education and cultural capital showed lower impacts on PS-TRE than on literacy and numeracy.