Big data products and income inequality of e-commerce farmers: evidence from China

How to effectively narrow the income gap among farmers has always been a major problem plaguing the governments of developing countries. As human society enters the era of big data, the perspective of academic research on farmers’ digital divide should be expanded to big data in a timely fashion. This paper takes the phenomenon of Chinese e-commerce farmers using big data products developed by platform enterprises to assist business decision-making as an example to explore the relationship between big data development and farmers’ income inequality. Based on a survey of 418 e-commerce farmers in China, this paper employs the Tobit model and entropy balance method to examine the impact of big data products use and big data product attributes on income inequality among e-commerce farmers. It finds that the use of big data products significantly reduced the income inequality of e-commerce farmers by narrowing the entrepreneurial alertness gap and dynamic capabilities gap among e-commerce farmers. Additionally, the usefulness, ease of use and experience of big data products promote the common prosperity of e-commerce farmers. This paper not only contributes to enriching the research on the farmers’ digital divide and the relationship between big data development and farmers, but also provides valuable references for the governments of developing countries in promoting big data development and alleviating income inequality.