Digital Inclusion of Disabled Individuals in Online and Offline Voluntary Work: Interview Data, 2024

Kamerāde, Daiga and Clark, Andrew and Goodall, Christine and Yuen, John and Vasilica, Christina and Parker, Christine (2025). Digital Inclusion of Disabled Individuals in Online and Offline Voluntary Work: Interview Data, 2024. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-857566

The data originate from the Digital Futures of Work Research Centre's Round 4 Innovation Fund project, *DIGITVOL: Digital Inclusion of Disabled Individuals in Online and Offline Voluntary Work*. This project investigated the impact of digitalisation on UK third-sector organisations, with a focus on the participation of disabled adults in online and offline voluntary work.

The project brought together an innovative interprofessional team of social scientists, third sector practitioners, vocational rehabilitation practitioners, disabled people, and digital engagement specialists to examine digital inclusion of disabled adults in voluntary work.

The project yielded fresh empirical insights from large-scale surveys and individual interview data, along with practical and policy guidelines to reduce the risk of exclusion. The findings will also have practical implications, supporting the inclusivity, employability, and well-being of disabled individuals, with potential applicability to paid work.

The Digital Futures at Work Research Centre (Dig.IT) will establish itself as an essential resource for those wanting to understand how new digital technologies are profoundly reshaping the world of work. Digitalisation is a topical feature of contemporary debate. For evangelists, technology offers new opportunities for those seeking work and increased flexibility and autonomy for those in work. More pessimistic visions, in contrast, see a future where jobs are either destroyed by robots or degraded through increasingly precarious contracts and computerised monitoring. Take Uber as an example: the company claims it is creating opportunities for self-employed entrepreneurs; while workers' groups increasingly challenge such claims through legal means to improve their rights at work.

While such positive and pessimistic scenarios abound of an increasingly fragmented, digitalised and flexible transformation of work across the globe, theoretical understanding of contemporary developments remains underdeveloped and systematic empirical analyses are lacking. We know, for example, that employers and governments are struggling to cope with and understand the pace and consequences of digital change, while individuals face new uncertainties over how to become and stay 'connected' in turbulent labour markets. Yet, we have no real understanding of what it means to be a 'connected worker' in an increasing 'connected' economy. Drawing resources from different academic fields of study, Dig.IT will provide an empirically innovative and international broad body of knowledge that will offer authoritative insights into the impact of digitalisation on the future of work.

The Dig.IT centre will be jointly led by the Universities of Sussex and Leeds, supported by leading experts from Aberdeen, Cambridge, Manchester and Monash Universities. Its core research programme will cover four broad-ranging research themes. Theme one will set the conceptual and quantitative base for the centre's activities. Theme two involves a large-scale survey of Employers' Digital Practices at Work. Theme three involves qualitative research on employers' and employees' experiences of digitalisation at work across 4 sectors (Creative industries, Business Services, Consumer Services, Public Services). Theme 4 examines how the disconnected attempt to reconnect, through Public Employment Services, the growth of new types of self-employment, platform work and workers' responses to building new forms of voice and representation in an international context. Specific projects include:

1. The Impact of Digitalisation on Work and Employment
-Conceptualising digital futures, historically, regionally and internationally
-Comparative regulation of digital employment
- Mapping regional and international trends of digital technology and work

2. Employers' Digital Practices at Work Survey

3. Employers' and employees' experiences of digital work across sectors
-Changing management processes and practices
-Workers' experiences of digital transformation

4. Reconnecting the disconnected: new channels of voice and representation
- displaced workers, job search and the public employment service
- self-employment, interest representation and voice

Dig.IT will establish a Data Observatory on digital futures at work to promote our findings through an interactive website, report on a series of methodological seminars and new experimental methods and deliver extensive outreach activities. It will act as a one-platform library of resources at the forefront of research on digital work and will establish itself as a focal point for decision-makers across the policy spectrum, connecting with industrial strategy, employment and welfare policy. It will also manage an Innovation Fund designed to fund novel research ideas, from across the academic community as they emerge over the life course of the centre.

Data description (abstract)

In today’s interconnected world, internet access is often considered critical for accessing work. However, reliance on the internet also poses challenges for some disabled people, who may be vulnerable to digital exclusion. This innovative project delivered by an interprofessional team of social scientists, voluntary sector organisations, vocational rehabilitation practitioners, disability researchers, disabled people, and digital engagement specialists examined digital inclusion of disabled adults in voluntary work.

The project aimed to:
(1) advance understanding of how digital inclusion of disabled individuals fosters social inclusion in online and offline voluntary work; and
(2) identify effective principles to boost participation, inclusivity, and leverage the potential of digital technologies in the voluntary sector organisations.

A mixed-methods approach is adopted for a more comprehensive understanding of the research problem. This included qualitative interviews and analysis that will provide deeper understanding and explanations for these patterns through analysis of the lived experiences of disabled adults and survey data analysis.

The key findings included:
• Link Between Digital Inclusion and Volunteering: For disabled adults, being included in online and offline volunteering depends on how well they can access and use digital technology in general. The same devices, technologies, social support, and skills used in employment and other areas of life are often applied to volunteering. Because disabled adults often have less access to devices and the internet and use them less than non-disabled adults, they are more likely to miss out on volunteering opportunities that require it.
• Digital Access and Divide: Most disabled adults in the UK are connected digitally, but the digital divide persists. Disabled adults face greater digital challenges and exclusion compared to non-disabled adults, with the disability digital gap remaining largely unchanged since 2018.
• Digital exclusion: Nearly one million disabled adults don’t have Internet at home, 1.4 million don’t use the Internet, and about two million don’t own a smartphone or computer.
• Frequency of Use and Online Exclusion: Disabled adults use the Internet less often than non-disabled adults and they are more likely to be left out of common online activities like browsing, emailing, social media, online banking, and streaming videos.
• Double Disadvantage and Additional Challenges: Disabled people often come from groups that with already more limited access to the Internet and devices, such as older adults, those with low incomes, benefit recipients, renters from local authorities, people with less education and those living alone. On top of these existing barriers, being disabled means facing even more difficulties in accessing and using digital technology.
• Individual Nature of Disability Experience with Digital Tools: Disabled adults’ experiences with digital tools are highly individual, shaped by factors such as impairment type, severity, presence of multiple impairments, and their social context.
• Double-Edged Sword of Digital Technology and Online Volunteering: Digital technology is crucial for inclusion but can also be source of exclusion for those struggling with technology. Disabled adults are more inclined to engage in online volunteering, because of its accessibility. However, online volunteering also presents challenges that may deter some disabled volunteers. Despite some digital barriers, disabled adults show higher interest in online volunteering compared to non-disabled adults.
• Importance of Internet Access for Engaging in Volunteering: Internet access and usage are crucial for enabling disabled individuals to engage in volunteering, including both online and in-person opportunities. Those who use the Internet more frequently are more likely to volunteer, even after considering their socioeconomic background.
• Internet Access, Use, Devices and Volunteering Hours and Frequency: For disabled individuals, owning devices does not affect the number of volunteer hours. More frequent Internet use is linked to volunteering more hours, with exception of frequent Internet users (daily or weekly) who volunteer fewer hours. Device ownership and Internet use do not impact the frequency of volunteering.
• Digital Barriers and Enablers of Volunteering:
o Technology over-reliance: Over-reliance on technology can complicate volunteer journeys, especially when IT systems or support is unavailable or inadequate.
o Technological assumptions: Organisations often assume people understand how to use technology and devices and may not recognise the need for support or training.
o Variation in suitability of assistive devices: The effectiveness of assistive devices can facilitate or hinder participation, depending on their suitability and the level of support provided. Malfunctioning or unsuitable assistive devices can exacerbate challenges for disabled individuals. Disabled adults can experience a mismatched between requirements and devices available or provided that can lead to exclusion form volunteering opportunities.
o Reliance of support networks: To be effective, use of assistive devices draws on the skills and experience of informal support networks. Organisations should remain attuned to prioritising supporting people rather than supporting technology.
o Organisational culture: Organisations should encourage a culture of listening and providing empathetic support to address the specific needs of disabled volunteers and reduce digital barriers to volunteering. Support structures should be inclusive and allow volunteers to discuss their needs, ensuring parity with paid staff support.
• Volunteering and Employment: Our findings suggest that, rather than volunteering serving as a direct path to paid work, employment helps disabled individuals overcome digital barriers to volunteering. The confidence, skills and resources acquired through paid employment, as well as the social capital that often comes from being part of being a part of more diverse networks that includes work colleagues as well as more personal relationships, means that those in employment might be better able to navigate some of the barriers to securing volunteering roles. Such resources are less easily initiated in volunteer roles - we heard frustrations that the Access to Work scheme, which supports paid employment, does not cover voluntary work.
• Discrimination and Volunteering. Disabled people continue to experience indirect and direct discrimination. For some, the lack of appropriate devices, limited training, and organisational cultures that make people reluctant to seek support all imply a level of discrimination that makes it difficult for those in volunteering roles to always excel. Such discrimination was not always so indirect. There is evidence to indicate that those who have been in successful volunteering positions for some time suggested they are being denied employment opportunities because they are disabled.

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