The Role of Digital Technologies in Mitigating Financial Exclusion in Rural and Urban Areas and Age Groups: Evidence from National-Level Survey Data

Under the traditional financial system, rural residents and middle-aged and elderly people have long faced the problem of insufficient access to financial services due to constraints including geographic location, resource availability, and capability limitations, creating significant structural financial exclusion. With the rapid advancement of digital technology, digital finance has emerged as a key instrument for enhancing financial inclusion and mitigating urbanrural and intergenerational inequalities. Based on the China Family Tracking Survey (CFPS) 2020 and 2022 data, this paper constructs individual-level micro-panel data to systematically assess the impact of digital finance on financial accessibility and explore its heterogeneous effects under the interaction dimensions of urban-rural and age structure. The study design introduces the Digital Financial Development Index (DIFI), household type, age division, and digital literacy indicators, and adopts fixed-effects panel regression and interaction term model to identify the mechanism path. The study finds that digital financial development significantly improves individual financial accessibility and has a stronger marginal effect on rural middle-aged and elderly groups; digital literacy plays a significant moderating role in the elderly group, which can effectively alleviate the phenomenon of "digital exclusion". However, as a cross-cutting disadvantaged group, the financial accessibility of the rural elderly has a relatively limited effect and requires urgent policy attention. This study not only fills the empirical gap in the perspective of urban-rural and intergenerational coupling but also provides micro-level evidence to inform the refinement of digital financial inclusion policies.