Digital Governance in Rural China and Social Participation Deprivation Among Rural Households: The Mediating Role of Public Service Access and the Moderating Effect of Digital Exclusion

Abstract

Promoting social participation is a core objective of digital inclusive development. Drawing on rural household survey data from five provinces in China and the Digital Governance Index developed by Peking University, this study systematically examines the impact of digital governance on rural households’ social participation deprivation. The benchmark regression results show that the effect of digital governance on rural households’ social participation deprivation follows an inverted U-shape, characterized by an initial increase followed by a subsequent decline. A series of robustness and endogeneity tests confirms the stability of these findings. Further heterogeneity analyses reveal pronounced regional differences. In the western region, the impact of digital governance on farmers’ social participation deprivation follows a U-shaped pattern, with deprivation initially decreasing and then increasing as digital governance deepens. By contrast, in the central and eastern regions, the inflection point of the inverted U-shaped relationship shifts further to the right relative to the full sample. Furthermore, digital governance exerts a significantly stronger mitigating effect on social participation deprivation among households experiencing higher levels of deprivation. Mechanism analysis shows that digital governance reduces farmers’ social participation deprivation by enhancing their perceived access to public services and improving their psychological well-being. However, moderation analysis shows that household-level digital exclusion and relative poverty significantly weaken these beneficial effects.