Research Article
Open access
Published on 8 February 2025
Download pdf
Zhao,S. (2025). Addressing the Digital Divide Among China's Elderly Workforce: Challenges and Strategies for Re-employment. Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences,163,23-32.
Export citation

Addressing the Digital Divide Among China's Elderly Workforce: Challenges and Strategies for Re-employment

Suyu Zhao *,1,
  • 1 Department of Public Administration and Communication, Beijing Information Science and Technology University, Beijing, China

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

https://doi.org/10.54254/2754-1169/2025.20688

Abstract

The global ageing problem has become a heavy issue; this brings us to a question: how can such a huge group survive. Relying on the government, the company, or on their own. China has the worst ageing problem; most older people choose to re-employment. Using their remaining energy, they can not only reduce the financial burden of their family but also refresh the whole labor market. However, the re-employment of the elderly is quite difficult because their outdated skills cannot fit today's requirements, and the digital divide appears. The key to supporting older workers' re-employment lies in addressing the digital divide of them. Through collection and summary of the Chinese age structure, status of the Chinese elderly re-employment, and the digital divide of the Chinese elders, this paper analyzes these aspects and conclude that although the technological gap of China's elderly re-employed is obvious, with the joint efforts of the government, enterprises and society, this digital divide will continue to narrow and will be bridged in the future. This paper also aims to find the key of rapidly alleviating the digital divide of Chinese elderly re-employment, and excavate the new solutions to build the bridge.

Keywords

Digital divide, China’s ageing workforce, elder re-employees, technology adoption

[1]. Khan, H. T., Addo, K. M., & Findlay, H. (2024). Public health challenges and responses to the growing ageing populations: A review of literature. essopenarchive. org.

[2]. Jarzebski, M. P., Elmqvist, T., Gasparatos, A., Fukushi, K., Eckersten, S., Haase, D., ... & Pu, J. (2021). Ageing and population shrinking: Implications for sustainability in the urban century. Npj Urban Sustainability, 1(1), 17.

[3]. Akimov, A. V., Gemueva, K. A., & Semenova, N. K. (2021). The seventh population census in the PRC: results and prospects of the country’s demographic development. Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 91(6), 724-735.

[4]. Zhou, M., Liu, L., Zhang, J., & Feng, Y. (2024). Exploring the role of chatbots in enhancing citizen E-participation in governance: scenario-based experiments in China. Journal of Chinese Governance, 1-32.

[5]. Nacrelli, T. (2025). Understanding Organizational Culture: Foundational and Manifest Culture. In Building Inclusive Leadership Beyond the Gender Binary (pp. 165-186). IGI Global Scientific Publishing.

[6]. Pinn, A. B. (Ed.). (2021). The Oxford handbook of humanism. Oxford University Press.

[7]. Michael, K., Carvalko, J. R., Andrews, C. J., & Batley, L. (2024). In the Special Issues: GenAI, Ingenuity, the Law, and Unintended Consequences. IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society, 5(2), 149-155.

[8]. Zhu, L. (2022). Research on the Employment Relationship of Retired Workers. International Journal of Education and Humanities, 4(2), 82-84.

[9]. YANG, Z., WEI, X., & QIU, S. (2023). The impact of the digital divide on the re-employment of the elderly and its policies. Modern Business Trade Industry, 45(20), 91–93.

[10]. LU, J., & WEI, X. (2022). The Mechanism of Labor Force Aging on Economic Development and Its Strategic Responses. Studies on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics, 03, 18–30.

[11]. LI, J., XUE, K., & ZHAO, J. (2024) (n.d.). Research on the impact of the digital divide on the re⁃employment of urban younger elderly people. China Soft Science, 2024(08), 189–199.

[12]. XU, Q. (2025). Path to bridge the digital divide under the national strategy of actively responding to population aging. CHUANBO YU BANQUAN, 16(13).

[13]. HUANG, D. (2024). The value implications, obstacles and innovative paths for the elderly to cross the digital divide. CHUANBO YU BANQUAN, 22, 72–76.

[14]. ZHANG, W. (2021). Research on the path to bridging the digital divide among the elderly. Journalism & Media Studies, 08, 78–80.

[15]. SUN, W. (2023). Analysis on the feasibility Path of re-employment of Young Elderly Human Resources development. Fortune Today, 36, 7–9.

[16]. Press Conference on the Main Data Results of the Seventh National Population Census and Answers to Journalists’ Questions. (2021). National Bureau of Statistics.

[17]. Notice of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security on strengthening support measures to help the development and growth of the Silver Economy. (2024). Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People’s Republic of China.

[18]. Ting, X. U., Youhua, M. O., Shidi, M. E. N. G., & Xiaojun, Z. H. U. (2023). Trend and prediction of fatality due to occupational injuries in China. Journal of Environmental and Occupational Medicine, 40(10), 1128-1134.

[19]. Thomassen, K., Sundstrup, E., Vinstrup, J., Seeberg, K. G. V., & Andersen, L. L. (2022). Barriers and Facilitators of Re-Employment among Senior Workers: Prospective Cohort Study. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(18), 11536.

Cite this article

Zhao,S. (2025). Addressing the Digital Divide Among China's Elderly Workforce: Challenges and Strategies for Re-employment. Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences,163,23-32.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

Disclaimer/Publisher's Note

The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

About volume

Volume title: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Business and Policy Studies

Conference website: https://2025.confbps.org/
ISBN:978-1-83558-949-6(Print) / 978-1-83558-950-2(Online)
Conference date: 20 February 2025
Editor:Canh Thien Dang
Series: Advances in Economics, Management and Political Sciences
Volume number: Vol.163
ISSN:2754-1169(Print) / 2754-1177(Online)

© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See Open access policy for details).