Digitalisation in the Labour Market: Challenges, Opportunities and Inequalities for Older Workers

The gradual digitalisation of the economy and the inception of Industry 4.0 eliminate routine jobs at the expense of more flexible and creative positions. However, these processes towards the digital economy make new demands on workers, who adapt to the new conditions to a variable degree. This project focuses on older workers and the role of their gender, age, ethnicity, type of job, and life course experience in labour market adaptability. The main objective is to examine how older workers in different types of jobs react to increasing digitalisation and restructuring of the labour market in the European context. The project will address the topic with qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection and analysis, combining existing international data with new data sources collected during our project in the Czech Republic. The main outcome will be a development of the theoretical concepts linked to the working adaptability of older workers to various sources of inequality, a better understanding of the working positions and perception of their situation.