The Impact of Digital Literacy on Labor Productivity in the Context of the Educational Environment Transformation

Abstract

Purpose: The low level of digital literacy and the insufficient capabilities of the existing personnel training system to improve it, have restrained the labor productivity growth at most enterprises in the non-resource sector in the Russian Federation. The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of the working-age population’s digital literacy on labor productivity in Russian regions and to analyze the impact of the educational environment’s digital transformation on the digital literacy of the population. Method: The study includes data on 87 constituent entities of the Russian Federation for 2015-2019 years retrieved from the website of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation. Panel regressions with random effects were employed to estimate the impact of digital literacy on labor productivity in Russian regions and the impact of educational environment transformation on digital literacy.

Findings: Modeling results showed that digital literacy has a positive impact on labor productivity. The use of ICT by the population has the greatest positive impact on labor productivity among other studied factors. The educational environment’s digital transformation has a positive effect on digital literacy. The use of ICT in the educational process and management of educational institutions is the most important factor in the formation of digital literacy over time.

Implications for Research and Practice: New activities in the regional subprojects of the national projects of the Russian Federation “Labor Productivity” and “Demography” can be proposed based on the study results.