How Digital Inclusion Increase Opportunities for Young People: Case of NEETs from Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for your manuscript. It addresses a very important topic and utilizes a good chance for international collaboration provided by European COST programme. The comparative analysis of data about different countries provides an opportunity for outlining common tendencies and peculiarities of urban-rural interactions under varying social, spatial, and cultural contexts of today. 

The manuscript however addresses too many issues in a rather unstructured way. It claims to present the results of a quantitative research based on statistical data analysis. The conclusions however concern a far broader set of issues, generally linked to the topic but which would need further research to specify impacts and interactions. The results are interesting yet insufficient for the general conclusions drawn. It is not clear at the end how the undertaken comparative analysis helps to outline common tendencies or to recommend context sensitive policy approaches.

 I also provide hereafter some detailed comments by sections:

 The Title seems currently too broad and vague – generally addressing ‘constrains and opportunities’ without clearly reflecting the focus and contents of the manuscript.

The Abstract needs to be re-written; it currently contains an unstructured  description of the issues addressed, the scope  and the approach of the study. The aim claimed here and the two foci claimed should be more clearly traceable throughout the manuscript.  It is not clear how ‘large’ shares of NEETs and rural areas in the three countries are defined.

The aim declared in the Introduction differs from what was promised in the abstract. Some long and unclear sentences at the end of the first paragraph need to be re-considered. It is not clear how the presented two research questions are linked to the two foci of the research claimed in the abstract.

All the Materials and methods used should be clearly presented here with the argumentation for choosing them; any limitations of the study need to be also clarified.

The Theoretical background section should precede the one discussing materials and methods (Section 2) as it discusses the categories addressed (mobility, digital divide, etc.) and should provide the argumentation on why and how the research methods were chosen. The section needs a better focus - too many topics  are mentioned here without explicitly outlining how this helps to the study.

3.1_The title should be re-considered as the text mostly discusses the concept of digital competences. The message of the last paragraph is unclear, and no source is quoted in support of the statement.

3.2_There is a lot of information here about different concepts of mobility, but the types of mobility regarded in the text are not clearly presented. The spatial aspects of mobility are currently missing in the manuscript, but they have their important role in providing access to labour, education, and culture.

3.3_Many topics are introduced here, but a definition of rural areas is missing. A discussion on the variety of rural situations would be also expected. The text is difficult to follow – the first two paragraphs belong to the previous subsection and the next one – to the subsection about digital divide.

3.4_The term NEETs is the first to discuss in-depth in this section as it is the major focus of the manuscript; its  various consequences under different context need to be outlined – and how the current study aims to contribute to dealing with this complexity.

4_There is a general impression that data analysis discussion is mixed with statements and considerations not directly stemming from the study results. Analysis results need to be clearly distinguished from the various recommendations made in the text. All identified differences and similarities in the three countries need to be discussed in connection to the manuscript topic. Your concluding claim about revealed general characteristics of the three countries - “a high share of the rural in the in the total volume of the population, a low level of education and a high share of unemployment”, are not convincingly supported by data.

 5_The testing of the link between mobility and rural and the statistical analyses need to be explained in more detail; it should be also explained how digital inclusion is defined. There are general statements and hypothesis here with no clarity about how they relate to the testing results.

The Conclusion lacks a clear structure and seems too general for the reported study. It should summarise results and outline the new knowledge resulting from the particular research, not to develop a next topic (about decreased mobility in rural areas). The concluding remarks about the changes and progress made in the education in the three countries are not based on any previous data or discussion presented in the manuscript. Nor are the three dimensions mentioned here (facilitating access to technology, training skills, and increasing motivation). 

 

The References are generally relevant to the declared aim of the manuscript. Some of the sources reflect previous periods (ref. 8, 14, ) or other regions (ref. 34); the authors need to check for newer publications or reconsider the conclusions made.

All Tables need to be quoted in the text before appearing there.

Table 2, dealing with the ratio of  rural population in the three countries should be the first one to present and discuss in this section as rural youths are the target group of the study; they could be then compared to urban ones in terms of education and digital literacy. There is probably a mistake in the caption – the periods mentioned there do not correspond to the years mentioned below.

 Chart 1 is not clearly related to the aim and scope of the study; it visualizes a broader set of issues and is not appropriate in the conclusion. Such a chart would be potentially useful when explaining the scope of the study and the interrelatedness of  the issues discussed.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

Thank you for your effort and kindness in reading our manuscript. We really appreciate your suggestions that really helped us to improve the text of the manuscript. Each of your suggestions can be found in the text of the current manuscript:

1.  We have changed the title of the article to reflect the content of the article. We rewrote the abstract including the object pursued, the target group, the applied methodology and the expected results.
2. Introduction: I reworded the sentences for more clarity and proposed research questions that would better reflect the objective pursued.
3. Materials and methods:  for each of the methods we used in the data analysis we motivated the option for each of them; I described the advantages and limitations of each method.
4. Theoretical background:
   1. We explained the use of theories on mobility (social and virtual) and explained why we focused on virtual mobility; we defined the concepts used (digital divide, virtual mobility, digital skills, digital inclusion) and explained why we chose to focus on digital inclusion, we completed our analysis with explanations on spatial / territorial mobility and described the relationship between it and mobility virtual.
   2. We perfectly agree that in the previous manuscript we failed to define one of the most important concepts in the text - rural areas - and we solved this by defining rural areas.
   3. I completed the paragraph about NEETs and showed why this category of population is important and what is the relationship with ITC in general and digital inclusion in particular;
   4. We developed and insisted on the comparative analysis between the three countries and we emphasized the importance of the topic approached for these countries and we established a clearer relationship between data and arguments.
   5. We defined digital inclusion and explained based on the data what this relationship is with mobility, especially digital mobility.
   6. we rearranged the conclusions so as to emphasize the results obtained and the role it plays. We emphasized the importance of digital inclusion in rural areas in general and for NEETs in particular, and we also referred to the necessary and possible intervention measures to be applied in the three countries.
   7. I rearranged the article (text, tables, figures) in accordance with the requirements of the journal
   8. the article has been corrected again from the point of view of the English language
   9. We have improved the bibliographic references with new sources and we have made sure that their indication in the text is correct.
   10. I explained in the manuscript the role of the data analyzed in the table and the graphical representation.

Thank you for the complex, instructive and very helpful report. We hope you have responded to your suggestions. 

Best regards, 

Gabriela Neagu

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is an interesting and pertinent area of research. It tries to explores the interrelationship between the level of digital skills of young people living in rural areas, in Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, and their mobility.

However, the research does not investigate the level of digital skills and the authors simply and wrongly assume that investment and thereby access to technology (or digital inclusion) is an indicator of digital competency.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

Thank you for your effort and kindness in reading our manuscript.

We really appreciate your suggestions that really helped us to improve the text of the manuscript.

Choosing countries for comparative analysis was one of the challenges of this approach and we explained during the analysis - with data and arguments - that our analysis is able to bring information about countries that appear very rarely in studies and disputes on various memes including Rural NEETs and their relationship to digital inclusion. We mentioned in the new manuscript that the difficulty often comes from the fact that statistical data about these countries are less numerous, mainly from objective cases.

We also agree with your observation to explain how we intend to develop this topic taking into account the same countries that we did in the last part of the article.

The gender component is a very important one and we agree that we needed a more elaborate approach. We have included new details and observations resulting from the analysis of data on the gender component.

Your suggestion regarding the organization of the chapter of conclusions is justified. We took into account the suggestion you made to us and modified the text, reorganizing the conclusions and modifying the initials that were inappropriate.

Thank you for the complex, instructive and very helpful report. 

Best regards, 

Gabriela Neagu

Reviewer 3 Report

The manuscript aimed to use database to examine some areas' ICT use. Some suggestions are proposed:

1. The authors need to claim their reasons for picking up those areas (Turkey...) for further analysis.
2.  In the data analysis, the authors also investigate the ICT issue with "gender" concept. I suggest the authors can discuss the gender problem in the digital divide . 
3.  Some  discussions in the part of conclusion are inappropriate. The authors need to move some discussions to the part of discussion. 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer, 

Thank you for your effort and kindness in reading our manuscript.

We really appreciate your suggestions that really helped us to improve the text of the manuscript. I read your comments regarding the references and changed and improved our list of references.

Thank you for your recommendation!

Best regards, 

Gabriela Neagu

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

 

I appreciate your effort to take into consideration my recommendations and to improve the manuscript. It is an important topic, and I would very much encourage you to go on with their work in this field. You would strongly benefit from keeping a clear and research focus and precisely explaining what you are going to compare and why. There are some key deficits still persisting in the second version of the manuscript:

 

NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training) is not comprehensively discussed as a framework of the research – it needs to be presented as a concept in relation to youth, with its complex societal consequences (and also its role as a SDG indicator (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/26634NEET_Sida_brief.pdf). Even an explanation of the acronym is not present in the text.

 

The definition of “rural” you have used fails to present the complex reality of today; the rural concerns far more than the geographical location and density. You could have a look at Discussing the typology of employment needs in rural areas could be probably useful in discussing current employment trends and opportunities in order to outline the importance and limits of e-working in rural areas. The mobility issue is still unclear. Territorial mobility is not only related to emigration as mentioned; it is also about commuting distances and to regular assess to urban centers for culture, entertainment, and education purposes and this is closely related to the typology of rural areas.

 

There are also some structural aspects to consider (already mentioned in my previous review):  The discussion on the theoretical background (3) should precede the discussion on the research methodology (2). Having in mind the topic aand focus of your research, the discussion on NEET (3.4) needs to be the first one, followed by the digital divide (3.1), “rural” (3.3) ad mobility (3.2).

 

Some statements in the manuscript need to be further clarified, as currently your claims seem questionable, e.g.:

“Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey have large populations in rural areas” - it should be clarified who and how would define the value of “large” and “small” population in certain area.

“Data on population in rural areas of the three countries shows that it still holds a significant share in the population compared with the EU-28“ - In 2019, the share of rural population In Bulgaria (25%) and Turkey (24%) equals the average value for the EU (25%) and is lower than the average one for countries of upper middle income (34%). It was also lower than many EU countries as Italy (29%), Estonia (31%), and Portugal (34%). In Romana (46%) the share of rural population was much higher than in Bulgaria and Turkey but fully comparable with Poland (40%), Croatia (43), Slovenia (45%), and the Slovak Republic (46) (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.RUR.TOTL.ZS).

Author Response

Dear referent,

Thank you for your patience in reading our manuscript again and in helping us to write it.

Your suggestions have always been very helpful.

We also appreciate the fact that we have helped by indicating bibliographical sources that have been helpful in understanding the issues discussed and complements information.

I completed the manuscript with the requested information and corrected certain statements. Indeed, there has been a major inattention on our part in the interpretation of the data in Table 1 and in general the statistical data.

I conducted a more detailed analysis of the rural as well as mobility.

I also changed the order of the chapters in the manuscript according to your suggestions.

Thanks again for your help and support.

Best regards,

Gabriela Neagu

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors made significant and broad modifications to the paper. I recommend its publication

Author Response

Dear referent,

Thank you for your patience in rereading our manuscript.

We also thank you for the trust you have placed in us by recommending the manuscript for publication.

We have taken into account your recommendations this time as well and we have been attentive to the fact that you have suggested to us that, although you agree with the publication, the manuscript can still be improved in terms of conceptual framework and methodology.

As a result, we have completed these two chapters with additional information and have reorganized the text so as to comply as well as possible with the requirements of the references and the journal.

 

Thank you very much once again!

Best regards,

Gabriela Neagu