Returns on Education in the Digital Economy: Evidence from Flexible Workers

Flexible worker occupies a great proportion of total workforce particularly in emerging markets. To deepen the understanding of the returns on education for flexible workers and provide important insights for education policy, we used the China General Social Survey (CGSS) data covering the years 2013 to 2021 to study the returns on education for the flexibly employed and its heterogeneity in the digital economy era, as well as to test the robustness of the model. We examine the impact of digital technology use on the returns on education, with a focus on flexibly employed workers. We introduce the interaction between digital technology use and education and generate several new discoveries.