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| Digital Finance, the Relative Income and Vulnerability of Households: The Impact of the Multidimensional “Divide” |
| ZHAO Yaxiong, WANG Xiuhua
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College of Finance and Statistics, Hunan University;
Research Institute, the People's Bank of China |
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Abstract Finance is an important part of poverty alleviation and development strategies; however, the problem of imbalanced and inadequate development persists and is mainly reflected in the allocation of financial resources. Financial development in rural areas is relatively slow, and the financing needs of disadvantaged groups, such as poor households, have not been effectively met. Digital finance is an important aspect of the development of inclusive finance; it can effectively expand the coverage and ensure the penetration of inclusive finance, and it has a major impact on the relative poverty and vulnerability of households. However, the development of digital finance is controlled by various factors, such as the “divide.” Because of the uneven distribution of digital technology and obstacles, vulnerable groups may encounter new financial exclusions owing to a lack of resources such as Internet tools and financial literacy.
Using a combination dataset from the China Household Financial Survey and The Peking University Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China, this study focuses on the impact of digital finance on the relative income and vulnerability of households and examines the impact of the “divide” on this effect. This paper provides a new perspective on how the development of digital finance can reduce household poverty and offers a reference for overcoming the imbalance and inadequacy of financial development and for the formulation of policies to reduce the income gap of residents by ensuring digital financial inclusion.
Our empirical results show that digital finance inclusion, especially extending access to digital finance, can increase the relative income and reduce the vulnerability of households. We explore these channels and find that digital finance inclusion can effectively increase the availability of financial services to households and improve the ability of potential investment, non-farm employment, and self-employment to help households reduce poverty. Further study shows that the development of digital finance is inclusive but has not broken space constraints. Digital finance has a stronger poverty reduction effect in advantaged areas such as urban regions and households as well as among individuals with digital literacy and financial education; however, it has little effect on the relative income of disadvantaged households or poor or digitally illiterate individuals. In brief, this phenomenon reflects the urgency of breaking the “divide” between disadvantaged and advantaged regions, households, and individuals.
This study makes the following contributions to the literature. First, it is important to verify the impact of the development of digital finance on the relative income and vulnerability of households and to analyze its micromechanisms because it is the key to promoting common prosperity. This paper systematically analyzes the above problems, not only enriching the literature on digital finance and poverty reduction but also clarifying the role of digital finance on households' relative income and vulnerability. Second, we examine whether the effect of digital finance on the relative income and vulnerability of households is affected by the “divide” because this is a difficult problem that must be overcome in the development of digital finance and will reduce the poverty reduction effect of digital finance. Analyzing the impact of the “divide” will accelerate the formulation of relevant policies and promote the differentiated development of digital finance.
Apart from the abovementioned empirical findings, first, we must develop digital finance and maximize its inclusive effects. We should use the advantages of digital technology to promote digital financial innovations in the future, such that households can use finance to achieve factor accumulation and increase their income. Second, we should increase investments in communication infrastructure in poor villages and help poor households and families without digital devices to buy mobile phones or computers. For example, we can implement an “Internet equipment to the countryside” plan to overcome the “tool exclusion” of poor households to ensure that poor households in remote areas also enjoy high-quality financial services. For poor households that lack financial literacy, the government should increase poverty alleviation efforts by offering education and improving their financial literacy through lectures and websites to prevent financial exclusion because of the “divide” in digital finance.
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Received: 16 August 2021
Published: 01 November 2022
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