Managing Digital Skills to Influence Intentions across Gender in Smart Senior Care Services Context

Abstract

China is facing aging population and digital divide problems. How to response the issue has become an important and emergent theme to the government and elderly institutes. The purpose of this study is ⅰ) to verify the current situations and the correlations of perceived digital skills, digital attitudes toward smart senior care services and willingness to use them among elderly people in an aging society; ⅱ) to analyze the mediating role of digital attitudes; ⅲ) to analyze the influence of gender differences on the relationship between variables; and ⅳ) to put forward suggestions. Data was collected by questionnaire survey and 403 valid respondents were received. Findings show that digital skills are the antecedents affecting digital attitudes and usage intentions. Digital attitudes act a partial mediating role between digital skills and usage intention, and the mediating effect is significant. Gender has significant differences in the relationship between digital skills and digital attitudes. Suggestion such as the government can consider the direction of publicity through traditional media and lectures, and strengthen the new media publicity policy was made.