Access to public services is fundamental to sustaining and improving the quality of life for individuals and advancing the overall social development. Benefits of access are expressed in the opportunities for participation in all societal domains. Driven by the public ethos, governments have the responsibility to ensure equal access to public services and support the process of public value creation. The public value produces socially accepted outcomes, including fairness, trust, and legitimacy, with effects depending on contextual factors. In response to barriers that have consistently burdening in-person access to public services, governments relied on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a potential remedy. However, the increased reliance on digital technologies has exposed the extent to which access disparities can exacerbate social inequalities, leaving marginalised populations further behind. Instead of removing physical barriers, digital solutions often introduce barriers of a new kind. Prior research has confirmed that access disparities spill over from the offline to the digital domain, with resources being the main source of inequalities. This research expands on that premise and aims to identify the specific barriers to access and propose enablers accordingly.
The research focus is the case of North Macedonia and the challenges and opportunities related to access to public services. The research integrates an exploratory sequential design, consisting of a qualitative phase with interviews to explore citizens’ perceptions, and a quantitative phase comprising survey of citizens. The research statistically confirms that sociodemographic and socioeconomic variables influence the incidence of barriers in offline and digital access to public services. The findings also confirm the spillover of specific barriers from the offline to the digital domain and explain their transformation in the process. This approach could contribute to targeted efforts for inclusive and effective digital solutions, by understanding the needs of groups facing barriers, and at the same time identifying the nature of the specific barriers. The practical implications of this study could inform policymakers in developing inclusive strategies that 1) enhance early stages of digital transformation processes and 2) effectively address barriers that impede access to public services by implementing customised solutions corresponding to users’ contextual circumstances. Additionally, the theoretical contribution of this research lies in advancing the conceptual understanding of barriers and enablers as central in the broader study of access inequalities.
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