Can rural households purchase happiness online? Evidence from China

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of mobile payment use on happiness, using the 2017 Chinese General Social Survey data. We employ the conditional mixed process model to address the selection bias issue. The results show that mobile payment use has a positive and statistically significant impact on rural residents’ happiness but no significant impact on urban residents. A gender-differential analysis reveals that females, regardless of urban or rural residence, are happier than their male counterparts when using mobile payment. These findings suggest that promoting the usage of mobile payment could bring favorable well-being returns. Keywords: Mobile payment; Happiness; CMP model; China