Older adults' e-government use for bureaucratic and transactional purposes: the role of website-related perceptions and subjective digital skills
Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy
ISSN: 1750-6166
Article publication date: 26 March 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to establish the link between the attitudes older adults hold toward governmental websites, their subjective online public service use skills and their e-government use for bureaucratic (e.g. document downloading or filling them out online) and transactional (e.g. payment) purposes.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were obtained from the 2020 Israel Social Survey and analyzed using binary logistic regression models. The sample included internet users aged 60 years and older (N = 735).
Findings
Subjective use skills were positively associated with each studied type of e-government use. Perception of security in providing personal information on governmental websites was also positively associated with both types of use. Perceived clarity and simplicity of governmental websites was (positively) related to transactional e-government use only.
Research limitations/implications
The results suggest that the types of e-government use in older adulthood are not contingent upon exactly the same factors. Moreover, attitudes toward e-government seem to be more relevant for transactional rather than bureaucratic e-government use in this lifespan period.
Originality/value
The study examines factors related to government website uses of various types in later life – a rarely studied topic in e-government research.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding statement: This study has received no support from any institution in public, private or not-for-profit sector.
Ethics approval statement: This study used the secondary data. Therefore, no ethical approval needed.
Competing interests: The author reports that there are no competing interests to declare.
Availability of data and material: The current research used the data from the dataset available by request from the Central Bureau of Statistics, State of Israel. The link for downloading this dataset was received upon online request to the email on February 16, 2022.
Citation
Rosenberg, D. (2024), "Older adults' e-government use for bureaucratic and transactional purposes: the role of website-related perceptions and subjective digital skills", Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/TG-08-2023-0116
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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