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Intergenerational Knowledge Transfer in the Digital Age: Youth as Catalysts for Parental Social Mobility in Dhaka City

Keywords

Abstract

Digital literacy and support across generations is critical to preventing older adults getting excluded from digital public services, financial systems, and economic activities. Youth often act as catalysts in addressing this issue within families through intergenerational knowledge transfer. Drawing on the theoretical framework of reverse socialization, this study aims to explore how digital knowledge shared by youth influences parents’ access to information, opportunities, and resources that contribute to social mobility. Following a mixed method approach this study surveyed 400 participants selected through purposive sampling and interviewed 10 using a semi-structured questionnaire. The data analysis was done using IBM SPSS Statistics version 25 with descriptive statistics, Chi-Square, cross-tabulation, and exploratory factor analysis. Findings of the study indicate that digital literacy has significantly enhanced parental social mobility by increasing capability, efficiency, and connectivity, enabling access to services such as entertainment, online shopping, mobile banking, and ridesharing. Practical knowledge shared by the youth in the family was applied by the parents to manage finance, engage civically, and run small businesses, which in the process also strengthened their family bonds. However, the study revealed that generational gaps in technological understanding, literacy limitations, gendered and aged dynamics in digital support often constrain the depth of digital inclusion. By highlighting how digital knowledge flows upward from children to parents, this research sheds light on a unique mechanism of social inclusion and underscores the critical role of youth in facilitating inclusive development through inter-generational knowledge transfer in Bangladesh.

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