Digital, Social and Financial Exclusion Among Elderly People. Demographic Problems of Europe Polish Example

Abstract

Over the past two decades, there has been particular interest in new technologies that may have the potential to enable environmentally sustainable economy, in the context of an aging world population, without requiring an end to growth.The number of seniors is growing around the world mainly because of the post-World War II baby boom, and increases in the provision and standards of health care. At the same time, the Internet has changed the way people work, sell or/and buy goods and services, create and share information, etc. Many more technological innovations and enabling capabilities such as payments platforms are likely to emerge. There it is crucial not to let seniors be digitally excluded. In this paper we discuss the problem’s possible impacts for the European economy. The first part is an analysis of correlation between technology revolution and globalization processes. The second part examines relation between digital divide, social exclusion, financial exclusion. The next part examines difficulties observed in the Internet use among elderly in Poland, that corresponds to the qualitative research done with the Computer Course for Seniors at the Technical University of Gdansk. In conclusions we try to formulate general indications which may stimulate growth of the on-line services markets targeted for the elderly. We show that their growth requires taking greater care with the factors valuable to seniors, of which very important seems to be simplicity, friendliness and focusing on informative and communicative services. Dynamic growth of these markets can have a positive influence in many economic aspects: easier labor market reentering among elderly, increasing demand for electronic markets as well as promotion of an active and positive aging among European elderly and prevention from long lasting stress as a result of digital, social and financial exclusion.