To inhibit or to promote: How does the digital economy affect urban migrant integration in China?

Urban migrant integration into the city fabric is a crucial aspect for social harmony and stability. With the development of digital economy, its role and underlying mechanism in urban migrant integration have not receive enough attention. According to the China Migrants Dynamic Survey, urban migrant integration consists of economic integration, sociocultural integration and psychological integration. Among these, economic integration is the least common, sociocultural integration is at the middle level, and psychological integration level is the most common. Further research shows that the digital economy significantly and negatively affects urban migrant integration. Regarding its subdimensions, the digital economy promotes migrant economic integration. However, it hinders migrant sociocultural integration and psychological integration. Further analysis of the underlying mechanisms reveal that the digital economy can promote migrants' personal income and household income to improve their economic integration, while it can also reduce the probability of migrants' interaction with local residents and weaken the development of a sense of local identity, which hinders their sociocultural and psychological integration. Heterogeneity analysis notes that the digital economy is more conducive to the economic integration of female and new generation migrants, while it hinders their psychological integration and greatly prohibits old generation migrants' sociocultural integration.