Challenges to sustainable ageing: the role of the generational digital divide in Budapest’s participatory budgeting

Abstract The inclusion of older adults in civic and political life is an important dimension of sustainable ageing, yet digitalisation increasingly shapes how such engagement is organised and accessed. This article examines the participation of adults aged 65 and over in Budapest’s participatory budgeting (PB) during the 2020/21 and 2021/22 cycles. In these two rounds, administrative participation data with age information were available, and participation was organised predominantly online. The descriptive analysis shows that older adults were underrepresented in both idea submission and voting relative to their share of Budapest’s population, and that their representation was even lower in the voting phase than in the idea-submission phase. To contextualise these results, the article also draws on survey-based data on parliamentary election turnout from an earlier period. These data provide limited and indirect contextual evidence on age-differentiated civic engagement in selected electoral districts, indicating that older adults’ participation was higher than that of younger adults. Taken together, the findings are consistent with the interpretation that digitally mediated participation requirements, in a context of age-related digital inequalities, may have contributed to age-differentiated patterns of inclusion in a formally open civic process. As a descriptive case study based on limited administrative participation data, the article contributes to debates on sustainable ageing by highlighting that digital institutional design may affect inclusion in later life. It concludes with policy implications for making participatory budgeting more accessible through more inclusive and hybrid forms of participation.