Does education help “old dogs” learn “new tricks”? The lasting impact of early-life education on technology use among older adults

Fabrice Kampfen and Jürgen Maurer

Research Policy, 2018, vol. 47, issue 6, 1125-1132

Abstract: Technological progress is often at the heart of improvements in quality of life. The development of personal computers (PCs) and the Internet are among the most important technological advances of the last century. PCs and the Internet have profoundly changed the way we access information, shop, view media, communicate, socialize, and spend our time. Despite the many benefits of computer and Internet use, certain population groups – especially low-educated and older consumers – have not yet fully adopted computer technology and the Internet in their daily lives. This paper estimates the effects of early-life education on computer and Internet use among older Italians. Using data on early-life educational attainment and computer and Internet use of older adults from the 2013 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), we exploit a historical increase in compulsory schooling in Italy as an instrumental variable for education to estimate the effects of early-life education on the adoption of PCs and on current use of the Internet. We find large and statistically significant effects of early-life education on later-life technology use among older persons who obtained additional education due to increased schooling requirements. In our benchmark estimations, one additional year of schooling resulted in an eight percentage point increase in the probability of having ever used a computer and in a 12 percentage point increase in the probability of reporting to have at least good computer skills. Individuals affected by the reform were also six percentage points more likely to have used the Internet in the last week. These findings are robust across different sample selection and model specification strategies. Our analysis also suggests that occupational choice and computer use at work are important channels through which education affects the adoption and use of computers and the Internet. Our findings thus highlight the likely importance of early-life education for later-life computer and the Internet use and perhaps technology adoption more broadly.

Keywords: Technology adoption; Personal computers; Internet; Education; Instrumental variable (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 I26 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:47:y:2018:i:6:p:1125-1132

DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2018.03.017

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