Intersectional Discrimination in Employment in the Digital Age: Sex, Age, Email Non-Use and Unemployment in the EU

Intersectional discrimination in employment is increasingly relevant in European equality law, particularly following the Pay Transparency Directive’s recognition of discrimination based on a combination of sex and another protected ground. This article combines a historical and contemporary legal discussion with an empirical examination of patterns potentially relevant to intersectional discrimination. Using Eurostat data for EU-27 countries over 2016–2025, the empirical analysis applies two-way fixed-effects models to examine associations between email non-use and unemployment among men and women aged 25–54 and 55–74. In the primary models, a 10-percentage-point-higher email non-use rate was associated with 1.09-percentage-point-higher unemployment for men aged 25–54 and 1.39-point-higher unemployment for women aged 25–54. These coefficients change substantially when country-specific linear trends are added, adverse lead diagnostics weaken temporal ordering, and the 55–74 estimates are statistically inconclusive. The estimates are specification-sensitive and non-causal. Email non-use does not directly measure digital skills, and the aggregate analysis does not measure discriminatory treatment or establish intersectional discrimination. The article discusses the relevance of these descriptive patterns to further research on employment equality and digital inclusion.