Does the Effect of Internet Use on Chinese Citizens’ Psychological Well-Being Differ Based on Their Hukou Category?

Cuihong Long, Jiajun Han and Chengzhi Yi
Additional contact information
Cuihong Long: School of Economics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
Jiajun Han: School of Economics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
Chengzhi Yi: School of International and Public Affairs, China Institute for Urban Governance, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200030, China

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 18, 1-21

Abstract: This paper draws support from the 2018 wave of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS 2018) and uses unconditional quantile regression, re-centered influence function (RIF) decomposition, linear structural equation modelling, extended regression modelling and censored regression to explore the heterogeneity of the impact of Internet use on the psychological well-being of Chinese non-agricultural and agricultural hukou holders. We find that Internet use better improves the psychological well-being of non-agricultural hukou holders, thereby widening the gap in psychological well-being between urban and rural residents in China. Through RIF decomposition, we observe that, except for the 10th quantile, the expansion effect of Internet use on the inequality in psychological well-being between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou holders is mainly reflected in the structure effect, which shows that compared to non-agricultural hukou holders, the return rate of Internet use on the psychological well-being of agricultural hukou holders is lower. Further mechanism analysis shows that using the Internet to socialize, obtain information and understand politics is more beneficial for the psychological well-being of non-agricultural hukou holders; moreover, Internet use can further exert different effects on the psychological well-being of the two groups by differently influencing their job satisfaction, government evaluation, and sleep quality. This study also confirms that relying only on external scientific and technological progress has a limited corrective effect on existing inequalities.

Keywords: Chinese hukou system; Internet use; urban–rural gap; psychological well-being; Internet; digital divide (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6680/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6680/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:18:p:6680-:d:413243

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().