Is there a common digital market in the European Union? Implications for the European digitalization strategy

Abstract

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, people has changed the way they work, learn and socialize. As result, it is important to identify the pre-existing digital gaps to implement the European Union digitalization strategy. This study aims to identify typologies of internet use in the 28 European Union (EU) countries (at the time of the survey), based on the characteristics of the users and their internet usage patterns. A two-level latent class analysis was applied. At the first level, individuals within each country were grouped according to their characteristics of internet use; and, simultaneously, at the second level, countries were grouped based on the similar structure of individual segments. Using data from Eurobarometer, results show that internet use in the EU digital market is not homogeneous. The European Commission should take these pre-existing gaps into account in the EU digitalization strategy.