E-commerce and rural women entrepreneurship ——Based on the quasi-natural experiment of “comprehensive demonstration policy” for E-commerce in rural areas

Siyuan Dong, Na Wang, Chengwei Fan, Shi Chen and Lei Zhang

Economic Analysis and Policy, 2024, vol. 83, issue C, 749-765

Abstract: The importance of information and communication technology in rural areas has gradually become prominent, and rural e-commerce has emerged as a crucial driver for promoting agricultural and rural development. This paper takes the comprehensive demonstration policy for e-commerce in rural areas as a quasi-natural experiment. It is based on five-period panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and employs the staggered difference-in-differences method to examine the impact of e-commerce on rural women entrepreneurship and its mechanisms. The research results indicate that the implementation of the comprehensive demonstration policy for e-commerce in rural areas significantly increases the probability of rural women engaging in entrepreneurship by 1.6 %. The entrepreneurial promotion effect of this demonstration policy is more pronounced for rural women in the central and western regions and those with lower educational levels, demonstrating the inclusiveness of e-commerce in rural development. Additionally, this promotion effect is also significantly influenced by marital heterogeneity. Mechanism analysis results suggest that the comprehensive demonstration policy for e-commerce in rural areas can stimulate the use of information and communication technology by rural women, leverage the crucial role of non-traditional education in skill development, alleviate financial and social capital constraints for rural women, and inspire a wave of rural women entrepreneurship. The paper argues that the construction of rural e-commerce has the potential to empower rural women entrepreneurship.

Keywords: E-commerce; Rural women entrepreneurship; staggered difference-in-differences method; Quasi-natural experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J16 O33 Q16 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecanpo:v:83:y:2024:i:c:p:749-765

DOI: 10.1016/j.eap.2024.07.018

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