Socio-demographic factors of the employed population digital skills development

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to assess the impact of the main socio-demographic characteristics on the level of development of digital skills of the employed population of Russia. The study contains three stages: a comparative analysis of the digital skills level between Russian and EU population; an analysis of digital skills structure in the context of gender, age, social and professional groups; assessment of the degree of the influence of socio-demographic characteristics on the level of digital skills of the employed population of Russia. Digital skills of employees are classified according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach. The degree of influence of the desired variables is obtained by linear regression. Rosstat and Eurostat data for 2021 were used as an information base. Findings: In Russia, as well as in the EU countries, digital skills are a critical characteristic of the employed population. According to the data of 2021, the population of Russia is comparable to the EU countries in terms of the share of people employed who do not have digital skills (5% and 6%, respectively), exceeds the share of people employed with basic skills (47% vs. 31%), is comparable in terms of advanced digital skills (31%) and is almost 2 times behind in terms of employees with a high level of digital skills (17% vs. 32%). The value of the study is in identification of the relationship between the level of digital skills of Russian employees and their socio-demographic characteristics, the role of which decreases, and the connection is lost as digital competencies grow, while the role of professional characteristics becomes stronger. The results obtained indicate that the higher digital skills of the employed population are determined by the institutional factors of the Russian labor market.