Electronic Governance and the Social Status of Older Citizens: Mechanisms of Inclusion and Stratification in Digital Public Services

Abstract

The state's shift to electronic formats of service delivery simultaneously expands the formal availability of services and delineates new contours of social differentiation for older citizens. The official discourse accompanying digital transformation not only describes technical changes but also codifies role expectations regarding recipients of social support measures and participants in governance processes, thereby shaping the distribution of rights and responsibilities. The purpose of the study is to determine how normative and strategic documents construct the roles and status of the older generation, and which institutional mechanisms facilitate or hinder their access to electronic services and their participation in governance practices.The methods comprise qualitative content analysis with elements of frame analysis of a corpus of federal and regional documents from the past seven years; the unit of analysis consisted of textual fragments that explicitly mention older citizens, mechanisms for easing access, and factors of digital differentiation. Coding proceeded across blocks capturing role representations, inclusion measures, and hidden barriers, followed by axial comparison of categories to identify stable linkages between principles of service delivery and actual regulatory requirements.The results indicate the predominance of the image of the older citizen as a recipient of benefits and a target of service delivery, with weak institutionalization of active roles of participation and partnership; accessibility measures are predominantly compensatory in nature (preservation of offline alternatives, training, user support, and proactive, application-free provision of certain services). In parallel, a “digital by default” regime is being reinforced, identity verification procedures are becoming more complex, familiar face-to-face channels are being reduced, and incentives tied to online submissions are being introduced, which together draw a dividing line within the age group according to levels of digital skills, resources, and support. The conclusions are that, despite a general orientation toward inclusion, digital modernization reproduces a dependent status for the older generation while simultaneously generating new bases of inequality; to mitigate these effects, it is necessary to institutionalize equivalent multichannel service provision, expand practices of genuine participation by older citizens in the design and evaluation of services, and conduct regular audits of hidden barriers to digital interaction.