Digital Skills and Older Workers Supporting Success in Training and Employment in the Digital World

Many Americans, regardless of age, lack digital skills, and these skill gaps are disproportionately large for individuals facing other barriers such as limited English proficiency, poverty, and limited education. Any policies and strategies put forth must account for these disparities in addressing digital skills gaps. This study documents some of the barriers and opportunities that exist for older workers accessing online programs, with a focus on their digital skill levels.

The researchers define older adults as those who are age 50 or older, and throughout this brief we compare these adults with those younger than 50. They analyzed the 2017 Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey to explore the digital skill levels of older workers, and how older workers’ race, ethnicity, income, occupation, and other characteristics are associated with digital skill levels. They also analyzed American Community Survey data to understand how older workers’ poverty status and access to broadband, internet, and computers and other devices are associated with digital skill levels. The analysis is complemented by information collected during interviews with leaders of programs to support digital skill training for older adults

(This report is 24 pages long.)

Copyright © September 2021. Urban Institute. Permission is granted for reproduction of this file, with attribution to the Urban Institute.

The following findings were identified in the report:

• Older Americans have lower levels of digital skills (digital skills score of 257, on average), than younger Americans (digital skills score of 280, on average), and variation by subgroup is substantial. As a reference point, this gap of 23 points is equivalent to about half the gap between an individual who can complete a task by navigating across web pages or applications and someone who cannot.
• Older Americans from historically oppressed groups (i.e., people of color and women) have lower levels of digital skills than older white workers.
• Closing digital skills gap for older workers could have an especially large payoff for the skills and earnings of older workers from historically oppressed groups.
• Older Americans who have basic digital skills or who are digitally literate have, on average, higher numeracy and literacy skills than younger Americans, underscoring just some of older workers’ assets.
• Older Americans with better computer and internet access have higher levels of digital skills than older Americans who do not, but their digital skills are still lower than younger Americans even when they have access.
• Older workers with more digital skills have significantly higher earnings than those with less and are better positioned to compete for the jobs of the future.
• Older Americans in rural areas tend to have lower levels of digital skills.
• Older workers have lower levels of digital skills than younger workers across nearly all occupations.
• Digital skills may be the missing puzzle piece that would allow older Americans to apply the other skills and assets they have to their jobs and other aspects of their lives.

The following recommendations were offered:

• Targeted funding and programs are needed to meet the needs of older workers.
• Education and training programs serving older workers should consider ways to build confidence, leverage peer learning, assess digital fluency, and teach digital skills in context.
• Older Americans need digital skill training, and targeting efforts to occupations with large gaps of digital skills between older and younger workers and/or occupations with growing demand.

• Last Updated:
• Created:
• Resource Publication Date: 2021
• Author(s): Hecker, I., Spaulding, S., Kuehn, D.
• Funding Source: AARP Public Policy Institute
• Resource Availability: Publicly available
• Posted by: Wesley Peterson
• Posted in: Workforce System Strategies