The Impact of Digital Divide on the Quality of Non-farm Employment of Rural Labour Force:An Empirical Test Based on CSS Data

Based on the data from three periods of the Comprehensive Survey of Social Conditions in China in 2017, 2019 and 2021, the quality of non-farm employment of rural labour force was evaluated using the entropy method to integrate the objective and subjective dimensions, and explore the impact of the digital divide on the quality of non-farm employment and its mechanism of action. It was found that, the digital divide significantly inhibited the improvement of non-farm employment quality of rural labour force, and this effect remained stable after dealing with endogeneity and after robustness test. The digital divide had a greater inhibitory effect on the subjective dimension of the rural labour force’ s non-farm employment quality, and the digital divide reduced the rural labour force’ s non-farm employment quality by inhibiting the enhancement of social capital and human capital. Heterogeneity analysis found that, the digital divide had a greater inhibitory effect on the quality of non-farm employment of rural labour force for females, the central and western regions, and the age group of less than 55 years old. Accordingly, there was a need to further bridge the digital divide, develop differentiated digital inclusion strategies, and enhance digital human capital in order to improve the quality of non-farm employment for rural labour.