E-Commerce as a Driver of Gender Equity
研究中国农村电商发展项目对劳动力市场和家庭的影响，发现该项目使女性劳动参与率提高3个百分点、每周工作时间增加2.5小时，并促进女性创业和家庭议价能力，对男性无显著影响。
<h3>Abstract</h3> We study China’s Rural E-Commerce Development program, a large-scale digital infrastructure initiative, to assess its labor market and household impacts. Exploiting county-level rollout variation and panel data from the China Family Panel Studies (2012-2020), we find that the program raised female labor force participation by 3 percentage points and weekly hours by 2.5, with no comparable effects for men. It also promoted women’s entrepreneurship, enhanced intra-household bargaining power, and improved daughters’ education and health. A cost-benefit analysis indicates income gains far exceed program costs, underscoring digital infrastructure’s potential to foster gender equity and intergenerational human capital in rural China.