Documentation, Informaiton & Knowledge ›› 2023, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (4): 62-71.doi: 10.13366/j.dik.2023.04.062

• Academic Focus(2):Digital Reverse Mentoring for the Elderly • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Offspring’s Education, Feedback Paths and the Digital Access Divide of the Elderly

LI Yunqiu1, LI Si2   

  1. 1. School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, 710049;
    2. Department of Information Management, Peking University, Beijing, 100871
  • Online:2023-07-10 Published:2023-08-16
  • Contact: Correspondence should be addressed to LI Si, Email:pkulisi@pku.edu.cn, ORCID:0000-0002-4627-9556
  • Supported by:
    This is an outcome of the project "Research on the Innovation of Aging Service Model in Public Libraries Driven by Digital Intelligence"(22CTQ013)supported by National Social Science Foundation of China.

Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] This paper aims to study the relationship between offspring's education level, digital feedback paths and the digital access divide of the elderly, to propose strategies and recommendations to bridge the digital access divide of the elderly, so as to promote the integration of the elderly into the digital society. [Design/Methodology] Based on the data of the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS), the matching samples of offspring and parents were screened, logistic regression and mediation effect analysis models were constructed, and then the method of propensity score matching was used to overcome endogenous problems. [Findings/Conclusion] It is found that parents whose offspring have junior college education or the education level higher than junior college, are more likely to receive intergenerational support resources then cross the digital access divide. Offspring's education level is particularly important for families in which parents both have digital access gap. The offspring's education level can influence the digital access divide of the parents through three paths: digital device feedback, digital skill feedback and digital concept feedback, which improve the digital access dilemma of the elderly who "unaffordable to access", "unable to access" and "unwilling to access" respectively. Among them, digital skill feedback is the most important mediating mechanism, followed by digital concept feedback, with digital device feedback being the least impact as a mediating mechanism. Accordingly, strategic suggestions are proposed to bridge the digital access divide of the elderly. [Originality/Value] From the perspective of intergenerational support, this paper focuses on digital access inequality of the elderly caused by different level of offspring's education, which provides practical ideas for bridging the digital access divide of the elderly.

Key words: Offspring's education, Digital access divide, Population aging, Digital feedback, Intergenerational support