Digital Dividend or Digital Divide: Can Fintech Bridge the Wealth Gap Amid Public Health Emergencies? a Comparative Research of Urban and Rural China

As a significant driver of financial innovation, can fintech provide protection for household wealth during major public health events? This paper utilises data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS) from 2015 to 2021 to construct Difference‐in‐Differences and Triple Difference models to assess the effectiveness of fintech in mitigating the adverse wealth impacts on urban and rural families during the COVID‐19 pandemic. The research indicates that: (1) the pandemic has exacerbated the pre‐existing wealth inequality between urban and rural families in China; (2) following the outbreak, fintech alleviated the negative impacts on urban family wealth, but did not significantly affect rural family wealth, thereby widening the inequality exacerbated by the digital divide; (3) the factors driving this digital divide include disparities in financial literacy between urban and rural residents, which lead to unequal access to the benefits of fintech.