Abstract
Over the last years, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated physical distancing measures aimed at the containment of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, limited the opportunities for older people (as well as to other segments of society) to actively participate in social life. We hypothesize that, among older men and women who before the COVID-19 pandemic were active (e.g., engaged in the local community, participating in the labour market, volunteering activities, and to informal care), those lacking access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) (and less experienced in using them) experienced deeper challenges to maintain their level of activity. Hence, less digitally savvy old men and women may have faced inequalities of opportunities to age actively (compared to their more digitally savvy peers). We test this hypothesis using large scale longitudinal data. In particular, focussing on European older people, we analyse data from the Survey for Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) Waves 1-8 along with data from the special SHARE COVID-19 Waves 8 and 9. Our aim is to determine the role of digital technologies in fostering active ageing in later life during the Covid-19 pandemic. While we adopt a broad definition of active ageing which transcend paid work and physical activity to include volunteering and informal caregiving, limitation in data availability do not allow to fully grasp the range of ways in which older people engage within their communities; as a matter of fact, we conclude our talk proposing a critical theoretical reflection on the concept of active ageing.
Presenters
Emma GaravagliaSenior lecturer, Department of Architecture and Urban Studies, Politecnico di Milano, Italy Alessandra Gaia
Research Fellow, Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy Federica Cretazzo
Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy, Italy
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Active Ageing, Information Communication Technologies, Grey Digital Divide, Digital Divide
