The Ministry of Digitalisation has released the results of a study it commissioned from the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER): “Digital Inclusion. Identifying the factors behind the digital divide“. The study, now available online, is one of the 40 initiatives foreseen in the National Plan for Digital Inclusion.
The study completes the survey requested in 2019 by the Ministry of Digitalisation on the perception and expectations of the population with regard to digital technology. In addition to other existing surveys on the subject of digital exclusion in Luxembourg, the Ministry of Digitalisation wanted to go beyond the established findings in order to deepen the quantitative, but also qualitative analysis of the digital divide in Luxembourg. The aim was to measure the impact that digital technology has on the daily lives of citizens and to identify the difficulties they encounter in this area.
For this purpose, the socio-economic research centre LISER was the ideal partner to analyse the data from a technical point of view, but also taking into account the social dimensions. The results of the study, together with LISER’s recommendations, will form the basis for a revision of the National Action Plan, adapting it to the needs of society and technological developments.
The main findings:
In 2022, 1.5% of the residents surveyed had never used the Internet and 0.5% had used the Internet more than three months ago. The 2% of residents who do not use the internet or hardly at all are mostly women, people aged 50 and over or people with a lower level of education.
Regarding the difficulties encountered by people with limited Internet use:
- 11% consider their skill level to be low,
- 42% have received help to use the Internet at least once,
- On average, people who have already used the Internet say that they have received almost 6 benefits out of the 14 benefits studied,
- 68% have a positive opinion on the fact that the Internet makes their life easier
- 36% do not feel any stress in using this tool.
The study identifies 3 groups of Internet users: heavy Internet users (32%), medium users (40%) and low users (28%). In the “low users” group:
- 20% feel a high level of stress as a result of using the Internet (compared to 14% in the survey population),
- 24% consider that the Internet makes life more complicated (compared to 14% in the survey population),
- 60% are bothered by the fact that some administrative services are only available online (compared to 43% in the survey population),
- 55% say they are not autonomous in using the Internet (compared to 42% in the study population).
Several of the recommendations obtained in this research have been anticipated and are already the subject of projects at the Ministry of Digitalisation. Others will be analysed in the near future for possible implementation.
Read the complete LISER study with recommendations (in French)