Urban-rural digitalization evolves from divide to inclusion: empirical evidence from China

Global digitalization leads to a new digital inequality, jointly faced by urban and rural areas. Diagnosing these digital challenges and seeking common coping strategies are crucial in the digital era. Yet, the state of Urban-Rural Digitalization (URD) remains ambiguous, and effective solutions are still lacking. Here we propose an integrative approach and introduce a novel Development-Gap-Integration framework to assess URD. Utilizing authoritative data from official government sources and institutes, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2020. Our findings depict a transformative journey of URD, evolving from divide to inclusion. The increasing integration accompanies by advancing development and diminishing gaps. However, we identify three significant challenges: 1) high development coinciding with high gaps, 2) inadequate integration of digital applications, and 3) widening disparity between provinces. Thus, we suggest tailored policy recommendations focused on urban-rural integration, enhancing digital literacy, and promoting regional coordinated development.