Digital skills and employmentInequalities and public policies in the European Union

Abstract

Digital skills are essential to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the digital era, ranging from basic user skills, which allow interaction or consumption online, to above basic skills, which enable access to the labor market under better conditions. For this reason, the acquisition and development of digital skills are a priority in EU policies. This chapter aims to analyze the level of digital skills in the countries of the EU, studying the existing territorial and social inequalities, based on the information provided by Eurostat on the Digital Skills Indicator 2.0 (DSI). The results show that there are significant inequalities, in both basic skills and above basic skills, between the countries of the EU and between different social groups. It is found that the gender digital divide responds to variables such as age and educational level. In addition, some orientations for public policies have been extracted.