How mobile social networks affect rural household income: evidence from China
Abstract
Purpose
The research attempts to estimate how the use of WeChat, the most popular mobile social networking application in contemporary China, affects rural household income.
Design/methodology/approach
Our materials are 4,552 rural samples from the Chinese General Social Survey, and a treatment effect (TE) model is employed to address the endogeneity of WeChat usage.
Findings
The results prove that WeChat usage has a statistically significant and positive correlation with rural household income. This conclusion remains robust after using alternative variables to replace the explanatory and dependent variables. Our research provides two channels through which WeChat usage boosts rural household income, namely, it can promote their off-farm employment and participation in investment activities.
Originality/value
Theoretically, the study provides several micro-evidences for understanding the impact of mobile social networks on rural household welfare. Further, our findings may shed light on the importance of digital technology applications in rural poverty alleviation for developing countries.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study was supported by the Chinese Ministry of Education Youth Fund Project (grant numbers: 23YJC630228), the 2022 Shanghai Philosophy and Social Science Planning Project (grant numbers: 2022ZJB007), the Shanghai Pujiang Program (grant numbers: 22PJC042), the key project of National Social Science Foundation of China (grant numbers: 22AZD048) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (grant numbers: 2023ECNU-YYJ040).
Citation
Zhang, J. and Gong, X. (2024), "How mobile social networks affect rural household income: evidence from China", Kybernetes, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/K-05-2024-1395
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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