Effects of Internet Adoption on Health and Subjective Well-Being of the Internal Migrants in China

Yihan Guo, Junling Xu () and Yuan Zhou
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Yihan Guo: Department of Cultural Industries and Management, School of Media and Communication, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, No. 800 Dongchuan Road Minhang District, Shanghai 200422, China
Junling Xu: School of Public Administration, Central China Normal University, No. 152 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China
Yuan Zhou: School of Public Administration, Central China Normal University, No. 152 Luoyu Road, Wuhan 430079, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-15

Abstract: During the past decades, the number of rural–urban migrants has dramatically increased in China. Their well-being is important for social development and has attracted the attention of researchers. This paper adopts five waves of repeated cross-sectional datasets within a nine-year span, included in the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS 2010–2018), to evaluate the impacts and mechanisms of internet adoption on the health status and subjective well-being of rural–urban migrants. Empirical results suggest that there are significant positive correlations between internet adoption and health status as well as subjective well-being. The results of structural equation modeling suggest that the impact of the internet on well-being occurs through increasing, bridging, and bonding social capital for rural–urban migrants. The mediating impact of bonding social capital on subjective well-being is more prominent, while the mediating impact of bridging social capital on health is stronger. Furthermore, we have explored the heterogeneous effects across gender and education. This is an early study which investigates such an important topic in the context of the digital era.

Keywords: internet adoption; rural–urban migrants; health status; subjective well-being; social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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