IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v82y2025ics1544612325008967.html

Does digital financial inclusion promote intergenerational income mobility? Evidence from China

Author

Listed:
  • Yang, Jing
  • Lu, Danning
  • Shi, Jianxun

Abstract

By matching the DFI of Peking University with the CHFS household questionnaire data, this paper empirically finds that digital financial inclusion facilitates intergenerational income mobility, particularly for lower-income households. The mechanism analysis suggests that digital financial inclusion enhances intergenerational income mobility by alleviating household credit constraints, improving educational investment and intergenerational occupational mobility. This positive effect is more pronounced in urban areas, for low-educated fathers and male offspring.

Suggested Citation

  • Yang, Jing & Lu, Danning & Shi, Jianxun, 2025. "Does digital financial inclusion promote intergenerational income mobility? Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:82:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325008967
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.107637
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325008967
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.107637?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pengpeng Yue & Aslihan Gizem Korkmaz & Zhichao Yin & Haigang Zhou, 2022. "The rise of digital finance: Financial inclusion or debt trap," Papers 2201.09221, arXiv.org.
    2. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Joulfaian, David & Rosen, Harvey S, 1994. "Sticking It Out: Entrepreneurial Survival and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 53-75, February.
    3. Solon, Gary, 1999. "Intergenerational mobility in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 29, pages 1761-1800, Elsevier.
    4. Nanda RAHMI & ALIASUDDIN, 2020. "Financial Inclusion And Human Capital Investment In Urban And Rural: A Case Of Aceh Province," Regional Science Inquiry, Hellenic Association of Regional Scientists, vol. 0(1), pages 47-54, June.
    5. Sun, Shiquan & Tu, Yongqian, 2023. "Impact of financial inclusion on the urban-rural income gap—Based on the spatial panel data model," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    6. Siti Nurazira Mohd Daud & Abd Halim Ahmad & Wan Azman Saini Wan Ngah, 2021. "Financialization, digital technology and income inequality," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(16), pages 1339-1343, September.
    7. Niu, Geng & Jin, XiaoShu & Wang, Qi & Zhou, Yang, 2022. "Broadband infrastructure and digital financial inclusion in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Lance J. Lochner & Alexander Monge-Naranjo, 2011. "The Nature of Credit Constraints and Human Capital," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2487-2529, October.
    9. Mao, Fengfu & Wang, Yuanfan & Zhu, Mengsi, 2023. "Digital financial inclusion, traditional finance system and household entrepreneurship," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. Rothstein, Jesse & Rouse, Cecilia Elena, 2011. "Constrained after college: Student loans and early-career occupational choices," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(1), pages 149-163.
    11. Zhu, Wenpeng, 2023. "Digital financial inclusion and the share of labor income: Firm-level evidence," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    12. Yang, Xiaolan & Zhang, Lele & Hong, Xiaoyue & Li, Wenchao, 2024. "Can digital financial inclusion facilitate intergenerational income mobility? Evidence from China," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(4), pages 951-962.
    13. Shang, Rui, 2023. "Divide or dividend: How digital finance impacts educational equality," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(PA).
    14. Jingrong Li & Bowen Li, 2022. "Digital inclusive finance and urban innovation: Evidence from China," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 1010-1034, May.
    15. Yi Fan & Junjian Yi & Junsen Zhang, 2021. "Rising Intergenerational Income Persistence in China," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 202-230, February.
    16. Seth D. Zimmerman, 2019. "Elite Colleges and Upward Mobility to Top Jobs and Top Incomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 1-47, January.
    17. Gary S. Becker & Nigel Tomes, 1994. "Human Capital and the Rise and Fall of Families," NBER Chapters, in: Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, Third Edition, pages 257-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. FAN, Yi, 2016. "Intergenerational income persistence and transmission mechanism: Evidence from urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 299-314.
    19. Juan Luo & Bao-zhen Li, 2022. "Impact of Digital Financial Inclusion on Consumption Inequality in China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 163(2), pages 529-553, September.
    20. Yue, Pengpeng & Korkmaz, Aslihan Gizem & Yin, Zhichao & Zhou, Haigang, 2022. "The rise of digital finance: Financial inclusion or debt trap?," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 47(PA).
    21. Weici Yuan, 2017. "The Sins of the Fathers: Intergenerational Income Mobility in China," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(2), pages 219-233, June.
    22. Ying Wu & Xu Li & Jin Li & Lin Zhou, 2022. "Digital Finance and Household Portfolio Efficiency," Journal of Management World, Academia Publishing Group, vol. 2022(3), pages 104-111.
    23. Aiyar, Shekhar & Ebeke, Christian, 2020. "Inequality of opportunity, inequality of income and economic growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yang, Wenshu & Han, Miao & Hwang, Yong-Sik, 2025. "Strategic differentials, digital finance, and transnational enterprise performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    2. Tan, Xianjiao & Kamaruddin, Roslina Binti & Hu, Siyang & Peng, Lishun & Que, Youxiong & Cai, Wenwei, 2025. "Rural revitalization and urban-rural income gap: A perspective from land transfer scale," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    3. Yan, Weibo & Gao, Sihan, 2024. "Family background and intergenerational mobility in a transition economy: Evidence from China," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C).
    4. Lizhi Tang & Mingcong Chen & Yan Tang, 2026. "Inclusive finance development and intergenerational income mobility: evidence from China," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, December.
    5. Zhou, Jun & Zhang, Xueyi & Korkmaz, Aslihan Gizem & Li, Youwei & Yue, Pengpeng, 2025. "Entrepreneurship in the digital era," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Behice Canatan & Ayşe Akboz Caner & Gökhan Özbilge, 2024. "Dynamics of Digital Financial Inclusion in Türkiye," Istanbul Business Research, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 53(2), pages 185-200, September.
    7. Mao Wu & Qianqian Zhang & Yujie He, 2026. "Inclusion or Exclusion: The Impact of Digital Finance on Intra-City Economic Inequality and Its Spatial Spillover Effect," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 17(1), pages 1305-1345, February.
    8. Bai, Zhe & Wang, Xingdong, 2025. "Technological progress bias, wage income gap, and income equity," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    9. Chong Lu, 2022. "The effect of migration on rural residents’ intergenerational subjective social status mobility in China," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3279-3308, October.
    10. Liang, Guibao & Xia, Qiao & Zhang, Lijie, 2025. "Nonlinear influence of digital finance on green economic efficiency," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    11. Javier Cortés Orihuela & Juan D. Díaz & Pablo Gutiérrez Cubillos & Pablo A. Troncoso & Gabriel I. Villarroel, 2024. "Intergenerational earnings mobility in Chile: the tale of the upper tail," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(5), pages 2411-2447, November.
    12. He, Hui & Shi, Wei, 2023. "Enterprise litigation risk and enterprise performance," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 55(PA).
    13. Yu, Yewen & Gong, Liutang & Yi, Junjian, 2025. "Globalization raises intergenerational inequality transmission in chinese villages," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 627-642.
    14. Ye, Xiang & Yue, Pengpeng, 2024. "What matters to reshaping consumption patterns in China? Digital inclusion and supply chain," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 59(C).
    15. Xu, Dandan & Guo, Dongli & Yue, Pengpeng & Li, Mengshi, 2024. "Household green consumption: Does digital inclusion matter?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    16. Huang, Xiao & Huang, Shoujun & Shui, Ailun, 2021. "Government spending and intergenerational income mobility: Evidence from China," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 191(C), pages 387-414.
    17. Hao, Yunping & Zhang, Bing, 2024. "The impact of digital financial usage on resident’s income inequality in China: An empirical analysis based on CHFS data," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    18. Feng, Qundi & He, Qinying, 2022. "Does parental migration increase upward intergenerational mobility? Evidence from rural China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 115(C).
    19. Li, Yuantian & Xu, Haoyu & Li, Huiru & Xu, Yingming, 2025. "Digital economy, environmental regulations, and green economic development," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    20. Tang, Le & Sun, Shiyu & Yang, Weiguo, 2021. "Does government education expenditure boost intergenerational mobility? Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 13-22.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:82:y:2025:i:c:s1544612325008967. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.