The effect of broadband internet on divorce in China

Shilin Zheng, Yuwei Duan and Michael R. Ward

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2019, vol. 139, issue C, 99-114

Abstract: There has been growing concern over the dramatically increasing number of divorces in China over the past two decades. We use provincial data from 2002 to 2014 to shed light examine what role the Internet has had on the number of divorces. We find that growing levels of broadband internet penetration and usage have significantly affected the propensity for divorce. The number of divorces grew by 0.008% for every 1% increase in the number of broadband subscribers. Instrumental variables estimation indicates that these effects are robust to possible spurious correlation. In addition, we identify three potential mechanisms that may be responsible for how broadband internet subscription affects the number of divorces. The impact of broadband internet subscription on divorce is larger in those areas with lower education levels as well as areas with a higher income growth rate, is positively affected by instant messaging services, and it plays a fundamental role in spreading information related to divorce. This paper not only explores the reasons why the number of divorces in China is increasing, but also makes marginal contributions to existing studies related to the impacts of improved technology on society.

Keywords: Broadband internet; Divorce; Social impact; Alternative choices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162518310904
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:139:y:2019:i:c:p:99-114

DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2018.07.038

Access Statistics for this article

Technological Forecasting and Social Change is currently edited by Fred Phillips

More articles in Technological Forecasting and Social Change from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().