Digitalization during the COVID-19 pandemic: the coronavirus crisis has deepened the digital divide between establishments

Abstract

"In order to survive the COVID-19 pandemic, establishments had to invest in digital technologies. It remains unclear whether this has widened the “digital divide” between establishments - in other words, whether establishments experienced with new digital (so-called) 4.0 technologies have invested more heavily in further digitalization than establishments that had no experience of using such technologies before the pandemic. This question can be examined for the first time using data from the new IAB-IZA-ZEW “Labor Market 4.0 Establishment Survey”. It shows that there was a digitalization boost due to the pandemic in only a few establishments. In fact, it was mainly establishments that had already gained experience with 4.0 technologies prior to the pandemic that made COVID-related investments so that the digital divide between establishments widened during the pandemic." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))

Cite article

Arntz, M., Böhm, M., Graetz, G., Gregory, T., Johanning, J., Lehmer, F., Lipowski, C., Matthes, B. & Niers, N. (2023): Digitalisierung in der Covid-19-Pandemie: Corona hat den digitalen Graben zwischen den Betrieben vertieft. (IAB-Kurzbericht 4/2023), Nürnberg, 8 p. DOI:10.48720/IAB.KB.2304