IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/telpol/v47y2023i3s0308596123000290.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of internet usage on the subjective well-being of urban and rural households: Evidence from Vietnam

Author

Listed:
  • Liang, Wanqi
  • Li, Wenying

Abstract

Although many studies have investigated various benefits of Internet usage, little attention has been paid to its subjective impacts. This paper examines the impact of Internet usage on subjective well-being (SWB) and subjective social mobility (SSM) using a sample of 5000 households in Vietnam. A propensity score matching method is applied to address the selection bias that existed prior to the intervention and to make a causal inference. We find that, on average, Internet usage increased subjective social well-being significantly. The heterogeneity analysis reveals that, in terms of the future subjective well-being (FSWB), Internet usage has a larger impact on rural households. However, we found no effect of Internet usage on subjective social mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Liang, Wanqi & Li, Wenying, 2023. "Impact of internet usage on the subjective well-being of urban and rural households: Evidence from Vietnam," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(3).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:47:y:2023:i:3:s0308596123000290
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2023.102518
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308596123000290
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.telpol.2023.102518?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Betsey Stevenson & Justin Wolfers, 2013. "Subjective Well-Being and Income: Is There Any Evidence of Satiation?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 598-604, May.
    2. Kavetsos, Georgios & Koutroumpis, Pantelis, 2011. "Technological affluence and subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 742-753.
    3. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2005. "Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 963-1002.
    4. Marco Caliendo & Sabine Kopeinig, 2008. "Some Practical Guidance For The Implementation Of Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 31-72, February.
    5. Ji, Chen & Jin, Songqing & Wang, Haitao & Ye, Chunhui, 2019. "Estimating effects of cooperative membership on farmers’ safe production behaviors: Evidence from pig sector in China," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 231-245.
    6. James J. Heckman & Sergio Urzua & Edward Vytlacil, 2006. "Understanding Instrumental Variables in Models with Essential Heterogeneity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 389-432, August.
    7. Boymal, Jonathan & Martin, Bill & Lam, Dieu, 2007. "The political economy of Internet innovation policy in Vietnam," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 407-421.
    8. Verme, Paolo, 2009. "Happiness, freedom and control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 146-161, August.
    9. repec:adr:anecst:y:2008:i:91-92:p:11 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Guido W. Imbens, 2015. "Matching Methods in Practice: Three Examples," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 373-419.
    11. Ed Diener & Robert Biswas-Diener, 2002. "Will Money Increase Subjective Well-Being?," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 119-169, February.
    12. Justina A.V. Fischer, 2009. "The Welfare Effects of Social Mobility," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 93, OECD Publishing.
    13. Rebecca Hartje & Michael Hübler, 2017. "Smartphones support smart labour," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(7), pages 467-471, April.
    14. Phuc Phan & Martin O’Brien, 2019. "Multidimensional Wellbeing Inequality in a Developing Country: A Case Study of Vietnam," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 145(1), pages 157-183, August.
    15. Castellacci, Fulvio & Tveito, Vegard, 2018. "Internet use and well-being: A survey and a theoretical framework," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 308-325.
    16. David H. Autor, 2001. "Wiring the Labor Market," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(1), pages 25-40, Winter.
    17. Zhu, Zhongkun & Ma, Wanglin & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso & Leng, Chenxin, 2020. "The effect of internet usage on perceptions of social fairness: Evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    18. Zhang, Jiaping & Zhang, Huirong & Gong, Xiaomei, 2022. "Mobile payment and rural household consumption: Evidence from China," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(3).
    19. Takashi Oshio & Kunio Urakawa, 2014. "The Association Between Perceived Income Inequality and Subjective Well-being: Evidence from a Social Survey in Japan," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 116(3), pages 755-770, May.
    20. KNIGHT, John & SONG, Lina & GUNATILAKA, Ramani, 2009. "Subjective well-being and its determinants in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 635-649, December.
    21. Simon Commander & Rupert Harrison & Naercio Menezes-Filho, 2011. "ICT and Productivity in Developing Countries: New Firm-Level Evidence from Brazil and India," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 528-541, May.
    22. Caporale, Guglielmo Maria & Georgellis, Yannis & Tsitsianis, Nicholas & Yin, Ya Ping, 2009. "Income and happiness across Europe: Do reference values matter?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 42-51, February.
    23. Hayet Kerras & Jorge Luis Sánchez-Navarro & Erasmo Isidro López-Becerra & María Dolores de-Miguel Gómez, 2020. "The Impact of the Gender Digital Divide on Sustainable Development: Comparative Analysis between the European Union and the Maghreb," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-30, April.
    24. Md Abdullah Omar & Kazuo Inaba, 2020. "Does financial inclusion reduce poverty and income inequality in developing countries? A panel data analysis," Journal of Economic Structures, Springer;Pan-Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (PAPAIOS), vol. 9(1), pages 1-25, December.
    25. Alex Michalos, 1986. "An application of multiple discrepancies theory (MDT) to seniors," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 349-373, November.
    26. Canh, Nguyen Phuc & Schinckus, Christophe & Thanh, Su Dinh & Hui Ling, Felicia Chong, 2020. "Effects of the internet, mobile, and land phones on income inequality and The Kuznets curve: Cross country analysis," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10).
    27. Wanglin Ma & R. Quentin Grafton & Alan Renwick, 2020. "Smartphone use and income growth in rural China: empirical results and policy implications," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 713-736, December.
    28. Pénard, Thierry & Poussing, Nicolas & Suire, Raphaël, 2013. "Does the Internet make people happier?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 105-116.
    29. Steffen Lohmann, 2015. "Information technologies and subjective well-being: does the Internet raise material aspirations?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(3), pages 740-759.
    30. Valerie Møller & Benjamin J. Roberts, 2017. "South African Hopes and Fears Twenty Years into Democracy: A Replication of Hadley Cantril’s Pattern of Human Concerns," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 39-69, January.
    31. Graham, Carol & Nikolova, Milena, 2013. "Does access to information technology make people happier? Insights from well-being surveys from around the world," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 126-139.
    32. Alex Michalos, 1980. "Satisfaction and happiness," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 385-422, December.
    33. Ed Diener & Shigehiro Oishi & Louis Tay, 2018. "Advances in subjective well-being research," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 2(4), pages 253-260, April.
    34. Hock-Eam Lim & Daigee Shaw & Pei-Shan Liao & Hongbo Duan, 2020. "The Effects of Income on Happiness in East and South Asia: Societal Values Matter?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 391-415, February.
    35. Chenxin Leng & Wanglin Ma & Jianjun Tang & Zhongkun Zhu, 2020. "ICT adoption and income diversification among rural households in China," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(33), pages 3614-3628, June.
    36. Fischer, Justina AV, 2009. "The Welfare Effects of Social Mobility: An Analysis for OECD countries," MPRA Paper 17070, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    37. Dan Andrews & Andrew Leigh, 2009. "More inequality, less social mobility," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(15), pages 1489-1492.
    38. Muhammad F. Bhuiyan & Radek S. Szulga, 2017. "Extreme bounds of subjective well-being: economic development and micro determinants of life satisfaction," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(14), pages 1351-1378, March.
    39. Ningsih, Caria & Choi, Yong-Jae, 2018. "An Effect of Internet Penetration on Income Inequality in Southeast Asian Countries," 22nd ITS Biennial Conference, Seoul 2018. Beyond the boundaries: Challenges for business, policy and society 190399, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    40. Heckman, James J. & Robb, Richard Jr., 1985. "Alternative methods for evaluating the impact of interventions : An overview," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1-2), pages 239-267.
    41. Michael Lechner, 2008. "A Note on the Common Support Problem in Applied Evaluation Studies," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 91-92, pages 217-235.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Phan, Van-Phuc, 2023. "Is the internet penetration pro-poor? Evidence from a panel data analysis," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(8).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giacomo Degli Antoni & Chiara Franco, 2022. "The effect of technological behaviour and beliefs on subjective well-being: the role of technological infrastructure," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(2), pages 553-590, April.
    2. Nicola Pontarollo & Mercy Orellana & Joselin Segovia, 2020. "The Determinants of Subjective Well-Being in a Developing Country: The Ecuadorian Case," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 21(8), pages 3007-3035, December.
    3. Fulvio Castellacci & Henrik Schwabe, 2020. "Internet, unmet aspirations and the U-shape of life," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-22, June.
    4. Yuta J. Masuda & Jason R. Williams & Heather Tallis, 2021. "Does Life Satisfaction Vary with Time and Income? Investigating the Relationship Among Free Time, Income, and Life Satisfaction," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(5), pages 2051-2073, June.
    5. Liu, Yan & Chen, Minjie & Yu, Jianyu & Wang, Xiaobing, 2024. "Being a happy farmer: Technology adoption and subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 221(C), pages 385-405.
    6. Fulvio Castellacci & Henrik Schwabe, 2018. "Internet Use and the U-shaped relationship between Age and Well-being," Working Papers on Innovation Studies 20180215, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, University of Oslo.
    7. Hong, Yan-Zhen & Su, Yi-Ju & Chang, Hung-Hao, 2023. "Analyzing the relationship between income and life satisfaction of Forest farm households - a behavioral economics approach," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    8. Zeynep B. Ugur, 2021. "Does Money Buy Happiness in Turkey?," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 16(3), pages 1073-1096, June.
    9. Wanglin Ma & Huanguang Qiu & Dil Bahadur Rahut, 2023. "Rural development in the digital age: Does information and communication technology adoption contribute to credit access and income growth in rural China?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1421-1444, August.
    10. Hudson, Eibhlin, 2013. "Does relative material wealth matter for child and adolescent life satisfaction?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 38-47.
    11. Castellacci, Fulvio & Tveito, Vegard, 2018. "Internet use and well-being: A survey and a theoretical framework," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 308-325.
    12. Wanglin Ma & Puneet Vatsa & Hongyun Zheng & Emmanuel Donkor & Victor Owusu, 2023. "Does Adoption of Information and Communication Technology Reduce Objective and Subjective Well-Being Inequality? Evidence from China," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 55-77, September.
    13. Ana Suárez Álvarez & María R. Vicente, 2023. "Going “beyond the GDP” in the digital economy: exploring the relationship between internet use and well-being in Spain," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    14. Puneet Vatsa & Junpeng Li & Phong Quoc Luu & Julio Cesar Botero‐R, 2023. "Internet use and consumption diversity: Evidence from rural China," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 1287-1308, August.
    15. Kundu, Srikanta & Kundu, Ruma & Chettri, Kul Bahadur, 2024. "Asymmetric effects of democracy and macroeconomic factors on happiness under high and low per capita incomes: A threshold panel analysis," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 216(C).
    16. Zhongkun Zhu & Wanglin Ma & Chenxin Leng, 2022. "ICT Adoption, Individual Income and Psychological Health of Rural Farmers in China," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(1), pages 71-91, February.
    17. Takashi Oshio & Kayo Nozaki & Miki Kobayashi, 2011. "Relative Income and Happiness in Asia: Evidence from Nationwide Surveys in China, Japan, and Korea," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 104(3), pages 351-367, December.
    18. Fumagalli, Elena & Rezaei, Sarah & Salomons, Anna, 2022. "OK computer: Worker perceptions of algorithmic recruitment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(2).
    19. Maria Pereira & Filipe Coelho, 2013. "Untangling the Relationship Between Income and Subjective Well-Being: The Role of Perceived Income Adequacy and Borrowing Constraints," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 14(3), pages 985-1005, June.
    20. Senik, Claudia, 2009. "Direct evidence on income comparisons and their welfare effects," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 408-424, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Subjective well-being; Subjective social mobility; Propensity score matching; Vietnam;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • P36 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training; Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:47:y:2023:i:3:s0308596123000290. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.