Will advances in digital technology reduce the rural-urban income gap?

Abstract

The booming development of digital technology has promoted economic growth and a new round of growth in the income levels of residents. However, the uneven development of digital technology and the existence of the digital divide have led to the fact that urban and rural residents do not enjoy the dividends of income growth brought by digital technology equally. This paper analyzes the relationship between digital technology and the urban-rural income gap and finds that the development of digital technology will narrow the urban-rural income gap, but it shows a non-linear "inverted U-shaped" trend. At the same time, the current level of digital technology is still low and has not yet crossed the inflection point of the "inverted U-shaped" curve. With the continued development of digital technology at its current level, the urban-rural income gap will further widen.

Keywords:

• digital technology level
• urban-rural income gap
• income distribution
• digital technology penetration rate
• education

JEL CODE:

• O12

Author contributions

Conceptualization, X.S. and X.K.; methodology, X.S.; software, X.S.; validation, X.S. and X.K.; formal analysis, X.S.; investigation, X.S.; resources, X.S.; data curation, X.S.; writing—original draft preparation, X.S.; writing—review and editing, X.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability Statement

Data used for this study is available and can be provided by the corresponding author upon request.