Digital Inclusive Finance and Socially Sustainable Development: Empirical Evidence on Intergenerational Educational Mobility in China’s Ethnic Minority Regions

Intergenerational educational mobility constitutes a cornerstone of sustainable social development—particularly in China’s ethnic minority regions, where socioeconomic development lags behind the national average. Digital inclusive finance—with its broad geographic reach and low entry barriers—offers a promising lever for breaking the cycle of low intergenerational mobility in these regions. This study systematically examines how the development of digital inclusive finance in China affects intergenerational educational mobility in ethnic minority regions and identifies the underlying mechanisms, thereby addressing SDG 4 (Quality Education) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities). Using six waves of longitudinal data (2012–2022) from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), we examine the impact of digital inclusive finance on intergenerational educational mobility. To mitigate endogeneity, we construct an instrumental variable based on historical telecom infrastructure and employ two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimation. The findings indicate that digital inclusive finance significantly enhances intergenerational educational mobility in ethnic minority regions. Further mechanism analysis indicates that the effect operates primarily through increased household net income and, more tentatively, through improved access to education-related information—proxied here by traditional media usage. Accordingly, we recommend upgrading digital infrastructure in ethnic minority regions, improving residents’ digital literacy, and aligning digital inclusive finance with education subsidies and employment guidance. This helps households convert financial access into sustained investments in offspring’s education—boosting intergenerational educational mobility and advancing social sustainability.