数字普惠金融与城镇居民性别收入差距

李 实　许 璨　詹 鹏

（浙江大学 a. 公共管理学院；b. 共享与发展研究院，浙江 杭州 310058）

摘要：随着数字技术在金融领域的广泛应用，数字普惠金融逐渐成为改善金融服务可得性的重要工具，并日益影响个体经济机会与收入分配格局。本文基于2018年和2023年中国家庭收入调查数据，考察数字普惠金融发展与中国城镇居民性别收入差距之间的关系。研究发现，数字普惠金融发展与个体收入增长显著正相关，且女性收入增长幅度相对更大，呈现出缩小性别收入差距的经验特征。异质性分析表明，数字普惠金融发展对女性相对收入的促进作用在农村户口和受教育程度较低的群体中更为突出。机制分析显示，这一促进作用主要体现为自雇经营女性收入和单位工时收入的相对提高，且在照护负担较重的家庭中更为明显。数字普惠金融可能通过缓解经营性融资约束、提高收入获取效率，对女性收入产生更强的边际促进作用。本文为理解数字普惠金融背景下的收入分配格局提供了微观证据，也为推动性别收入平等与包容性增长提供了实证支撑。

关键词：数字普惠金融；金融包容性；性别收入差距；收入增长；收入分配

作者简介：李实，浙江大学公共管理学院教授；许璨，浙江大学公共管理学院博士研究生；詹鹏，浙江大学公共管理学院特聘研究员、浙江大学共享与发展研究院研究员。

引用格式：李实，许璨，詹鹏. 数字普惠金融与城镇居民性别收入差距[J]. 首都经济贸易大学学报，2026，28（4）：3-18.

Digital Financial Inclusion and the Gender Income Gap among Urban Residents in China

LI Shi, XU Can, ZHAN Peng

（Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058）

Abstract: Gender income gaps have attracted extensive scholarly and policy attention. Existing studies have mainly explained these gaps through employer discrimination and gendered divisions of household labor, while giving less attention to how changes in financial service provision may shape gendered income outcomes. Digital financial inclusion provides a useful setting for examining this issue, but whether digital financial inclusion narrows or widens gender income gaps remains an empirical question.

Using data from the 2018 and 2023 waves of the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP), this study examines the relation between digital financial inclusion and the gender income gap among urban residents in China. Individual-level CHIP data are matched with the city-level Digital Financial Inclusion Index of China. The dependent variable is the logarithm of annual income, and the key explanatory variable is the lagged and standardized city-level digital financial inclusion index. The empirical model controls for individual, household, and city-level characteristics, as well as province and year fixed effects. The main coefficient of interest is the interaction between digital financial inclusion and a female dummy variable.

The results show that digital financial inclusion is positively associated with individual income growth, and that this association is significantly stronger for women. The positive and statistically significant interaction term indicates that digital financial inclusion is associated with faster income growth for women than for men, which is consistent with a narrowing of the urban gender income gap. This finding remains robust across alternative specifications, including corrections for labor market selection, tests for potential endogeneity, and alternative sample restrictions. Among the subdimensions of the index, use depth shows the strongest association with women's relative income gains, suggesting that actual engagement with digital financial services is especially important.

Heterogeneity analyses reveal that this gender-equalizing association is stronger among rural-hukou urban residents and among individuals with high school education or below. Mechanism analyses provide supportive evidence for two pathways. First, after adjusting for observable selection into self-employment, digital financial inclusion is positively associated with the income of existing self-employed women, suggesting that it may ease business-related financing constraints. Second, digital financial inclusion is positively associated with women's relative hourly income, and this association is stronger in households with heavier care responsibilities.

These findings suggest that policies should move beyond expanding basic access and place greater emphasis on deepening women's actual use of digital financial services. Digital financial inclusion should also be linked with support for women's self-employment, micro-entrepreneurship, and family care arrangements, so that financial service convenience can be more effectively translated into women's income growth and a narrower gender income gap.

Keywords: digital financial inclusion; financial inclusion; gender income gap; income growth; income distribution

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