Impact of Digital Financial Inclusion on Optimization of Employment Structure: Evidence from China

Digital financial inclusion plays an important role in optimization of employment structure. In this article, we use panel data on 29 provinces over the period 2011 to 2018 to analyse the impact of digital financial inclusion on optimization of employment structure in China. The instrumental variables method (FE and 2SLS) is adopted to test the relationship empirically. Taking full consideration of endogeneity and verifying their robustness, our results show that digitally inclusive finance significantly drives optimization of employment structure in China, and the effect is heterogeneous. Digital financial inclusion has a significant driving effect on optimization of employment structure in eastern China. In central and western China, the driving impact is insignificant, more so in the former than the latter. We conduct further analysis, showing a positive effect of three dimensions of digital financial inclusion on employment structure optimization. From the perspective of promotion, from strong to weak, they are the depth, width and digitization of digital financial inclusion.