Productive Aging in the Online World: Determinants of Personal Autonomy in the Digital Realm

Abstract

Contemporary society is aging and increasingly digitalized. However, the digital divide or inequality in access, use, and effective appropriation of digital technologies among older population (‘grey digital divide’) remains a challenge and an increasingly important area of research. This article analyzes the digital participation of older adults and how this relates to productive aging, a topic that has received little attention in sociology. Using data from the Survey on Equipment and Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Households (TIC_H) of the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE, 2021), the authors propose an index to measure personal autonomy and analyze its relationship with different sociodemographic variables. The analysis confirms that within the group of older people, those with more privileged positions in society (men, with a higher level of education or income) are also those who carry out more online activities. These results offer guidance on where to focus public policy efforts to achieve more productive aging.