The Impact of the Digital Economy on Urban-Rural Income Inequality: A Meta-Analysis of 63 Empirical Studies in China

Against the backdrop of ongoing national strategies for “common prosperity” and “Digital China,” clarifying the mechanisms through which the digital economy affects urban-rural income inequality is of both theoretical and practical significance. It helps assess the effectiveness of high-quality development and informs the optimization of income distribution policies. Drawing on theories of digital inclusion and technology bias, this study constructs an “access-use-benefit” analytical framework and systematically synthesizes evidence from 63 empirical studies at the provincial, municipal, and county levels in China (76 effect sizes, with a combined sample of 163,560 observations). A meta-analysis is conducted within a random-effects modeling framework, accompanied by heterogeneity and robustness tests, publication bias diagnostics, subgroup analyses, and CR2-based robust meta-regression. The results show that, on the whole, the digital economy tends to narrow the urban-rural income gap, but the average effect is relatively modest and exhibits pronounced context dependence. Accordingly, policy efforts should focus on promoting digital infrastructure connectivity and industrial digital transformation at the metropolitan and city levels, enhancing residents’ capabilities to translate digital technology “use” into tangible “benefits,” and improving inclusive digital finance systems and data-factor governance mechanisms, so as to better serve the realization of common prosperity and high-quality development.