Logging on to prosperity: how digital literacy drives the expansion and quality of rural household consumption

Using data from 20,537 rural household samples of the Chinese Social Survey (CSS) spanning 2017–2021, this paper analyzes the impact of digital literacy on rural households’ consumption. Findings show that digital literacy significantly enhances consumption levels, optimizes consumption structures, reduces consumption inequality, thereby realizing both the expansion and quality improvement of rural household consumption. This conclusion remains robust after a series of tests. Its impact exhibits heterogeneity in space, time, and cultural development levels. Non-agricultural employment (increasing non-agricultural labor time and workforce proportion) and class perception (improving judgments of current and expectations for future socioeconomic status) are key mediation mechanisms. We thus propose policies to accelerate digital literacy cultivation systems for better realizing the role of digital literacy in providing human capital support to boost rural household consumption.