Emerging digital inequality in early life: Parenting and differential usage of digital devices among urban preschoolers in China

Abstract Objective This study aims to investigate the following questions: (1) how Chinese preschoolers’ usage of digital devices differ by their family socioeconomic status (SES), and (2) how socioeconomic differences in children's usage of digital devices can be accounted for by parents’ digital parenting attitudes and behaviors. Background Scholars in social stratification and inequality have warned about “Digital Inequality” and argued that the fact that people from different socioeconomic backgrounds differ in their access to digital equipment and their knowledge of how to use digital devices effectively would eventually contribute to social inequality. Unfortunately, most of the current studies on digital inequality focus on the population of adults or adolescents; whether and how digital inequality emerges in early life remains heavily understudied. Methods We use data from Early Childhood Study‐The Great Bay Area (ECS‐GB), a regional representative survey conducted in 2018 and designed to assess preschool children's social‐emotional and cognitive development in Guangdong, a coastal province in South China. Our analytical sample consists of 11,445 preschool children aged from 3 to 6 with urban hukou. Results Our results show that compared with children from lower‐SES families, preschoolers from higher‐SES families spend less time on digital devices daily, are less likely to use digital devices for prolonged time, and spend significantly less time on non‐education purposed and leisure activities. These socioeconomic differences in children's digital usage in terms of time and types of activities are attributable to the fact that parents of higher SES families impose more restrictions, provide more guidance to their children's digital activities, and are more conscious about their children's digital usage in daily life. Conclusion In contemporary China, digital inequality emerges in early life and such inequality is closely related to family's digital parenting practices.