The Impact of Digital Skills on Labor Market Outcomes in Turkey: First Evidence from LITS-IV Data

Yıl 2025, Cilt: 8 Sayı: 3, 487 - 509, 31.07.2025

Mustafa Özer

https://doi.org/10.33723/rs.1730600

Öz

This study analyses the effects of digital skills on wage levels, household wealth, and job quality in the Turkish labour market. The main data source of this study is the fourth wave of the Life in Transition Survey (LITS), conducted by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank. The data were collected in Turkey between 2022 and 2023. This wave included questions on digital skills for the first time. Therefore, this study is the first academic research to examine the effects of digital skills on labour market outcomes using this dataset. The findings indicate that the digital skills index has a statistically significant and positive effect on the household wealth. However, no statistically significant effect of digital skills was found on wage levels or job quality. Control variables such as educational attainment, region, age, urban-rural status, and marital status emerged as statistically significant determinants of wages, household wealth ladder level, and job quality. These results suggest that labour market outcomes depend not only on individual skills such as digital competence, but also on individuals’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Therefore, the findings highlight the need for policies that not only promote individual digital skills, but also address regional and socioeconomic inequalities through more comprehensive measures to ensure that digitalization supports equality of opportunity in the labour market.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Digital Skills , Labor Market Outcomes , Job Quality , Household Wealth , Turkey

TÜRKİYE'DE DİJİTAL BECERİLERİN İŞGÜCÜ PİYASASI SONUÇLARINA ETKİSİ: LITS-IV VERİSİYLE İLK BULGULAR

Öz

Bu çalışma, dijital yeterliliklerin Türkiye iş gücü piyasasında ücret düzeyi, hane halkı refahı ve iş kalitesi üzerindeki etkilerini analiz etmektedir. Çalışmanın temel veri kaynağı, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development ile Dünya Bankası tarafından yürütülen Life in Transition Survey’nin (LITS) dördüncü dalgasıdır. Bu veri Türkiye’de 2022-2023 yılları arasında toplanmıştır. Çalışmada dijital becerilere ilişkin sorular ilk kez bu dalgada yer almıştır. Bu nedenle dijital yeterliliklerin iş gücü çıktıları üzerindeki etkisini bu veri setiyle inceleyen ilk akademik araştırma olma özelliği taşımaktadır. Elde edilen bulgular, dijital yeterlilik indeksinin hane halkı refahı üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve pozitif bir etkisi olduğunu göstermektedir. Öte yandan dijital yeterliliğin ücret düzeyi ve iş kalitesi üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı bir etkisi bulunmamıştır. Çalışmada kontrol edilen eğitim düzeyi, bölge, yaş, kırsal-şehir ayrımı ve medeni durum gibi değişkenler ise ücret, refah ve iş kalitesi üzerinde istatistiksel olarak anlamlı belirleyiciler olarak öne çıkmıştır. Bu bulgular, iş gücü piyasasındaki istihdam çıktılarının yalnızca dijital yeterlilik gibi bireysel becerilere değil; aynı zamanda bireylerin demografik ve sosyoekonomik özelliklerine bağlı olduğunu göstermektedir. Bu yüzden, sonuçlar, iş gücü piyasasında dijitalleşmenin fırsat eşitliği yaratabilmesi için yalnızca bireysel becerilerin geliştirilmesinin yeterli olmadığını göstermektedir. Dijital becerileri artırmaya yönelik politikaların, aynı zamanda bölgesel ve sosyoekonomik farklılıkları azaltacak bütüncül tedbirlerle desteklenmesi gerekmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Dijital Beceriler , İşgücü Piyasası Sonuçları , İş Kalitesi , Hane Halkı Refahı , Türkiye

Kaynakça

• Acemoglu, D., & Autor, D. (2011). Skills, tasks and technologies: Implications for employment and earnings. In Handbook of labor economics (Vol. 4, pp. 1043-1171). Elsevier.
• Acemoglu, D., & Restrepo, P. (2019). Automation and new tasks: How technology displaces and reinstates labor. Journal of economic perspectives, 33(2), 3-30.
• Arntz, M., Lipowski, C., Neidhöfer, G., & Zierahn-Weilage, U. (2025). Computers as stepping stones? Technological change and equality of labor market opportunities. Journal of Labor Economics, 43(2), 503-543.
• Atasoy, H., Banker, R. D., & Pavlou, P. A. (2021). Information technology skills and labor market outcomes for workers. Information Systems Research, 32(2), 437-461.
• Balkaya, E., & Sıçrar, H. (2025). Teknoloji Kullanım Düzeyinin Ücretler Üzerindeki Etkisi: Türkiye İmalat Sanayi Sektörü Örneği. Sosyal Güvenlik Dergisi, 14(2), 126-141.
• Berg, J., Green, F., Nurski, L., & Spencer, D. A. (2023). Risks to job quality from digital technologies: Are industrial relations in Europe ready for the challenge?. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 29(4), 347-365.
• Cameron, A. C., & Trivedi, P. K. (2005). Microeconometrics: methods and applications. Cambridge university press.
• Consoli, D., Castellacci, F., & Santoalha, A. (2023). E-skills and income inequality within European regions. Industry and Innovation, 30(7), 919-946.
• Deming, D. J., & Noray, K. (2020). Earnings dynamics, changing job skills, and STEM careers. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 135(4), 1965-2005.
• Dunn, M. (2017). Digital work: new opportunities or lost wages?. American Journal of Management, 17(4).
• Fox, J. (2015). Applied regression analysis and generalized linear models. Sage publications.
• Francis, D. V., & Weller, C. E. (2022). Economic inequality, the digital divide, and remote learning during COVID-19. The Review of Black Political Economy, 49(1), 41-60.
• Johnson, D. R., & Creech, J. C. (1983). Ordinal measures in multiple indicator models: A simulation study of categorization error. American sociological review, 398-407.
• Horton, J. J., & Tambe, P. (2025). The death of a technical skill. Information Systems Research.
• Martin, L., & Hauret, L. (2022). Digitalization, job quality, and subjective well-being. Handbook of labor, human resources and population economics, 1-41.
• Mikalef, P., & Parmiggiani, E. (2022). An Introduction to Digital Transformation. In Digital Transformation in Norwegian Enterprises (pp. 1-10). Cham: Springer International Publishing.
• Norman, G. (2010). Likert scales, levels of measurement and the “laws” of statistics. Advances in health sciences education, 15, 625-632.
• Paklina, S., & Shakina, E. (2022). Which professional skills value more under digital transformation?. Journal of Economic Studies, 49(8), 1524-1547.
• Qi, J., Li, H., Li, W., Jin, J., & Ye, F. (2024). The Influence of Digital Skills on Farm Households’ Vulnerability to Relative Poverty: Implications for the Sustainability of Farmers’ Livelihoods. Sustainability, 16(19), 8420.
• Reljic, J., Evangelista, R., & Pianta, M. (2021). Digital technologies, employment, and skills. Industrial and Corporate Change, dtab059.
• Sodokin, K., Djafon, J. K., Couchoro, M. K., & Agbodji, A. E. (2023). Digital transformation, financial access and discrepancies in household wealth accumulation. Cogent Economics & Finance, 11(2), 2241700.
• Sullivan, G. M., & Artino, A. R. (2013). Analyzing and interpreting data from Likert-type scales. Journal of Graduate Medical Education, 5(4), 541–542.
• White, H. (1980). A heteroskedasticity-consistent covariance matrix estimator and a direct test for heteroskedasticity. Econometrica: journal of the Econometric Society, 817-838.
• Wooldridge, J. M. (2016). Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach 6rd ed. Cengage learning.
• Yang, G., Yao, S., & Dong, X. (2023). Digital economy and wage gap between high-and low-skilled workers. Digital Economy and Sustainable Development, 1(1), 7.
• Zhang, Z., Xia, Y., & Abula, K. (2023). How digital skills affect rural labor employment choices? Evidence from rural China. Sustainability, 15(7), 6050.