Abstract
This paper draws support from the 2018 wave of the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS 2018) and uses unconditional quantile regression, re-centered influence function (RIF) decomposition, linear structural equation modelling, extended regression modelling and censored regression to explore the heterogeneity of the impact of Internet use on the psychological well-being of Chinese non-agricultural and agricultural hukou holders. We find that Internet use better improves the psychological well-being of non-agricultural hukou holders, thereby widening the gap in psychological well-being between urban and rural residents in China. Through RIF decomposition, we observe that, except for the 10th quantile, the expansion effect of Internet use on the inequality in psychological well-being between agricultural and non-agricultural hukou holders is mainly reflected in the structure effect, which shows that compared to non-agricultural hukou holders, the return rate of Internet use on the psychological well-being of agricultural hukou holders is lower. Further mechanism analysis shows that using the Internet to socialize, obtain information and understand politics is more beneficial for the psychological well-being of non-agricultural hukou holders; moreover, Internet use can further exert different effects on the psychological well-being of the two groups by differently influencing their job satisfaction, government evaluation, and sleep quality. This study also confirms that relying only on external scientific and technological progress has a limited corrective effect on existing inequalities.
Highlights
The population of China, the most populous country in the world, is divided into two groups based on the household registration system: agricultural hukou holders and non-agricultural hukou holders
Bessière et al [20] proposed three hypotheses regarding the effect of the Internet on psychological well-being from the perspective of social resource allocation: (1) the social augmentation hypothesis, which suggests that communication on the Internet can improve psychological well-being by offering additional avenues of social interaction and enlarging the user’s social networks; (2) the social displacement hypothesis, which proposes that online communication displaces valuable routine social interaction with family and friends and negatively impacts the psychological well-being of users; and (3) the social compensation hypothesis, which holds that Internet users who have initially impoverished social resources can meet new friends and participate in new groups through the Internet, with online activities being able to help compensate for the social resources such users lack in the offline world
Based on data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2018, we used unconditional quantile regression and re-centered influence function (RIF) decomposition to investigate the heterogeneity of the impact of Internet use on the psychological well-being of non-agricultural and agricultural hukou holders
Summary
The population of China, the most populous country in the world, is divided into two groups based on the household registration system (commonly known as the hukou system): agricultural hukou holders and non-agricultural hukou holders. In July 1951, the Ministry of Public Security promulgated the “Interim Regulations on the Management of Urban Household Registration”, which stipulated that household registration and management should be implemented in cities to maintain public order while emphasizing the protection of residents’ freedom of residence and movement. 1958, the “Regulations on Household Registration”, passed by the Standing Committee of the National. People’s Congress, required citizens moving from rural areas to urban areas to comply with relevant restrictions, which changed the function of the hukou system from population registration and management to population movement control. Each person is assigned a hukou type based on his or. Public Health 2020, 17, 6680; doi:10.3390/ijerph17186680 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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