Revisiting the digital divide in Europe
An ISOC LIVE Summary
Authors: José Luis Gómez-Barroso - UNED Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia; Raquel Marbán-Flores - Universidad Complutense de Madrid; Ainara Rodríguez-Sánchez - UNED Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia; Cristina Miragaya-Casillas - Universidad de Granada
The paper “Revisiting the digital divide in Europe — The profile of those on the wrong side of the divide” examines whether the digital divide remains a significant issue across Europe and identifies the socio-economic profile of those most affected. Using data from Round 10 of the European Social Survey collected between 2020 and 2022 across 30 European countries, the authors apply probit regression models to analyze both the “absolute divide” — lack of Internet access — and the “relative divide” — limited digital skills and familiarity with online tools.
Reassessing the Digital Divide in Europe
The authors argue that despite widespread assumptions that the digital divide has largely been solved in developed countries, substantial inequalities persist. They note that while Internet penetration and affordability have improved dramatically over the past two decades, this apparent ubiquity obscures continuing exclusion affecting vulnerable populations. The paper emphasizes that the divide has evolved from a simple access issue into a broader question of social participation, skills, and the ability to benefit from increasingly digitized societies.
The study traces how European policy evolved from early “Information Society for all” initiatives toward broader digital economy agendas emphasizing competitiveness and growth. Over time, digital inclusion became only one element among many within European digital strategies. The authors highlight that the COVID-19 pandemic again exposed how essential digital access and literacy had become for participation in education, healthcare, work, and social life.
Literature Review and Research Gap
The paper reviews prior research on the digital divide in Europe, noting that earlier studies concentrated on national or regional disparities, broadband deployment, and demographic correlations such as age, gender, education, and income. While many studies identified structural determinants of digital inequality, relatively few focused specifically on profiling individuals who remain digitally excluded.
The authors position their work as filling this gap by adopting an individual-centered approach. Rather than analyzing geographic regions alone, they seek to characterize the typical European who remains disconnected or digitally disadvantaged.
Data and Methodology
The analysis relies on the European Social Survey Round 10, conducted between 2020 and 2022 in 30 European countries. Respondents were at least 15 years old, and after listwise deletion of incomplete responses the sample consisted of 58,377 observations for the access divide analysis and 51,712 for the skills divide analysis (those affected by the absolute divide were removed from the latter).
Two dependent variables were constructed:
“Absolute_divide” measured whether respondents used the Internet at all (coded 1 = non-user, 2 = user).
“Relative_divide” measured familiarity with advanced digital concepts such as preference settings, advanced search functions, and PDFs, on a five-level scale.
Independent variables included:
Socio-demographic factors such as age, gender, education, household composition, and residence type.
Economic variables including occupation, income source, and perceived financial hardship.
Habits such as social interaction frequency and Internet use patterns.
Attitudes toward online communication, including whether respondents felt digital communications improved closeness, utility, or privacy.
The authors used probit regression models because they fit well with binary and ordinal dependent variables while allowing meaningful interpretation of marginal effects. They also subdivided countries by GDP per capita, geographic region, population density, and rurality to examine second-order effects across different European contexts.
Findings on the Absolute Divide: Who Remains Offline?
The paper concludes that the digital access divide remains substantial in Europe. Across the full sample, roughly 11 percent of Europeans reported not using the Internet at all — a divide the authors note exceeds 10 percent across Europe.
The strongest predictor of exclusion was age. Older generations, especially baby boomers, were significantly more likely to remain offline; notably, for the access divide the boomer effect (around 14 percent) was actually larger than the effect for the oldest, over-75 group (just over 4 percent). Educational attainment was also highly influential: individuals with little or no formal education faced much higher risks of exclusion. Living alone and residing in rural villages also increased the likelihood of being disconnected.
Economic vulnerability emerged as another major factor. Those who were retired, unemployed, disabled, engaged in domestic work, or dependent on farming or pensions were more likely to remain outside the digital world. Interestingly, the subjective feeling of financial hardship mattered more than objective income level, which was not itself a significant predictor.
The authors also found that attitudes toward communication technologies mattered. Respondents who believed online communication made people feel closer or helped coordinate activities were more likely to be connected, while those who felt it disrupted work-life balance were less likely to use the Internet. Social isolation also correlated strongly with non-use.
Regional Variations Across Europe
Second-order analyses revealed important regional nuances. In wealthier countries, place of residence mattered less, while in lower-income countries rural living significantly increased the risk of digital exclusion. Gender differences also varied geographically. In poorer countries and parts of Eastern Europe, women were sometimes more likely than men to use the Internet.
The Nordic countries stood out as having very low levels of exclusion overall, with relatively few significant predictors beyond age and partnership status. In contrast, Southern and Eastern European countries showed stronger effects linked to rurality, economic hardship, and occupational status.
The paper highlights especially striking country-level disparities. Portugal showed the highest rate of Internet non-use — affecting more than a quarter of the population (over 28 percent) — with North Macedonia also high, while Norway and the Netherlands exhibited near-universal connectivity.
Findings on the Relative Divide: Digital Skills
The authors distinguish clearly between access and proficiency. Even among those connected to the Internet, significant inequalities persist in digital competence. Approximately one-quarter of Europeans reported little or no familiarity with more advanced digital tasks.
Again, age was the strongest predictor of lower skills. Unlike the access divide, however, the skills gap increased progressively with age, with the oldest groups exhibiting the lowest digital proficiency (a marginal effect reaching around 16 percent for the oldest individuals). Educational attainment played an even larger role here than in the access model.
Several additional nuances emerged:
Women were less affected by the access divide but more affected by the skills divide.
Larger household sizes correlated with lower digital proficiency, possibly because household members delegated digital tasks to others.
Students and people still “in education” showed significantly higher levels of competence.
Greater time spent online strongly improved digital familiarity.
The place of Internet use also mattered. Using the Internet at home, at work, or while mobile all correlated positively with digital skills, while using it only occasionally in public or social settings did not significantly improve proficiency.
Digital Inequalities Rather Than a Simple Divide
In the discussion section, the authors argue that “digital divide” may no longer be the most useful framing. Instead, they propose thinking in terms of “digital inequalities,” recognizing that digital exclusion overlaps heavily with broader forms of social exclusion.
The paper emphasizes that connectivity alone is insufficient. Access to infrastructure and devices does not guarantee meaningful participation or effective use. Motivation, social context, education, and cultural factors all shape whether people can truly benefit from digital technologies.
The authors connect their findings to emerging concerns around artificial intelligence divides, suggesting that inequalities around AI use are likely to follow patterns similar to earlier digital divides. They cite recent studies showing that AI adoption already correlates with previous patterns of digital advantage and disadvantage.
Conclusions and Policy Implications
The paper concludes unequivocally that the digital divide remains a real and persistent issue in Europe. Although connectivity has improved dramatically, significant portions of the population remain excluded from full participation in digital society.
The authors identify the typical digitally excluded European as someone older, poorly educated, economically vulnerable, socially isolated, and often living in rural areas. They argue that policies addressing digital exclusion must therefore go beyond infrastructure deployment and focus on broader social inclusion and digital empowerment.
They call for renewed people-centered digital policies, emphasizing digital literacy, social support, and sustained public investment. The paper highlights European initiatives such as the 2030 Digital Compass and the Digital Competence Framework — whose third edition, DigComp 3.0, was published in November 2025 — but stresses that implementation success varies widely across member states.
Ultimately, the authors contend that digital competence is becoming essential for participation in modern society. As technological change accelerates and AI tools spread, they argue that the risks of exclusion may deepen unless policymakers treat digital inclusion as a long-term social priority rather than a solved problem.
COMMENTARY
On the verge of a digital divide in the use of generative AI? — Benton Institute summary of Suárez & García-Mariñoso, the AI-divide finding the authors cite (older, less-educated, and women lag)
ITS Edinburgh 2025 — Message from the Chair — framing of the conference whose special issue this paper appears in, spanning digital inclusion and AI policy
RESOURCES
Revisiting the digital divide in Europe — the paper itself (open access, CC BY-NC-ND), Telecommunications Policy 50 (2026) 103206
European Social Survey Round 10 (2020) — the underlying dataset (Democracy, Digital social contacts module)
European Social Survey (ESS ERIC) — the survey infrastructure behind the data
On the verge of a digital divide in the use of generative AI? — Suárez & García-Mariñoso (2025), key AI-divide source
ITU DataHub — source of the Internet-adoption figures (91.2% of Europe online in 2024)
ITU — The affordability of ICT services 2024 — source of the broadband-price-trend figures
2030 Digital Compass / Digital Decade — the EU policy framework the paper assesses
DigComp — Digital Competence Framework — cited as updated to DigComp 3.0 (Nov 2025)
33rd European Regional ITS Conference (Edinburgh 2025) — the conference behind this special issue
UNED — home institution of the corresponding and two co-authors