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      Call for Papers: Hierarchies of domesticity – spatial and social boundaries. Deadline for submissions is 30th September, 2024. Full details can be read here.

      Articles to be no longer than 6,000 words (excluding footnotes and bibliography) and submitted in two forms: an anonymised version in which all references to the authors’ institution and publications are omitted; and a full version including the authors’ titles and institutional affiliations. For complete instructions on style, formatting, etc., please consult: https://www.plutojournals.com/wp-content/uploads/WOLG-Instructions-for-Authors2023.pdf 

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      Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation

      Volume 14, Issue 2
       
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      The labour digital divide: digital dimensions of labour market segmentation

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            Abstract

            This paper investigates digitalisation in labour activities within the Spanish population, with the aim of examining its extent and characteristics in relation to the digital divide at work, focusing particularly on access to and use of the internet. It thus aims to analyse the digital dimension of job segregation in the Spanish labour market. Internet use is explored both as an indicator of the type of work carried out and, in aggregate terms, of the broader characteristics of the labour market. The authors argue that a new segmentation of the labour market might be emerging, based on the technological requirements of jobs. The article draws on data from a representative Spanish population survey on how employees access and use the internet at work. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistical analyses were performed to describe the correlation between digitalised labour practices and individual sociodemographic conditions. The results show that around a third of Spanish workers are not required to use the internet at work. This population falls into two categories: the ‘analogical precariat’, in poor socio-economic conditions; and ‘traditional analogical labour’, in better quality traditional jobs. Digital workers can be classified into three groups: the ‘digital precariat’ (with a poor economic situation); ‘traditional digital labour’ (mainly involved in productive digital tasks); and the ‘innovative class’ (carrying out productive and communicative digital tasks). The level of education is by far the most important determining variable, in relation both to general and advanced uses. Young people and women are prominent in less complex uses of the internet (the digital precariat), which are usually related to less qualified jobs. The article argues that this represents a more subtle gender discrimination in the digital sphere than in the analogue one, with women being overrepresented in the digital precariat and underrepresented in the innovative class, while also being overrepresented in traditional analogical labour.

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            Author and article information

            Journal
            Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50010512
            Journal ID (jcode): workorgalaboglob
            Title: Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation
            Publisher: Pluto Journals
            ISSN: 1745-641X
            ISSN: 1745-6428
            Publication date (Print): 1 January 2020
            Volume: 14
            Issue: 2 ( doiID: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.14.issue-2 )
            Pages: 7-30
            Article
            Publisher ID: workorgalaboglob.14.2.0007
            DOI: 10.13169/workorgalaboglob.14.2.0007
            SO-VID: 4125c194-76f3-4c26-bf89-991a3306b166
            Copyright © © Daniel Calderón-Gómez, Belén Casas-Mas, Mariano Urraco-Solanilla and Juan Carlos Revilla, 2020
            License:

            All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

            History
            Custom metadata
            lang eng

            ScienceOpen disciplines: Sociology,Labor law,Political science,Labor & Demographic economics,Political economics
            Keywords: digital divide,ICT,digital inequality,labour market,work digitalisation,post-Fordism

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