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E-commerce development, time allocation and the gender division of labour: evidence from rural China

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  • Yutong Li
  • Lan Zhou

Abstract

E-commerce is critical to rural women’s career development. From the perspective of labour supply, this study investigates the impact of e-commerce development in rural areas on individuals’ time allocation and households’ gender labour division. Based on the quasi-natural experiment of the Rural E‐Commerce Demonstration County Program in China, we use the data of a large-scale survey from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), and construct a difference-in-difference model to obtain the policy impact. Empirical evidence shows that e-commerce development promotes rural women’s part-time employment by crowding out their leisure time, while has no impact on the time allocation of rural men. Besides, e-commerce development fails to increase women’s entrepreneurship or modify the traditional gender division of labour in the household. The results demonstrate the benefits and shortcomings of e-commerce for rural women empowerment from a new perspective, indicating that more favourable policies should be introduced to support women’s digital skill improvement and entrepreneurial activities.

Suggested Citation

  • Yutong Li & Lan Zhou, 2025. "E-commerce development, time allocation and the gender division of labour: evidence from rural China," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 373-378, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:32:y:2025:i:3:p:373-378
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2023.2270224
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