The Impact of Internet Use on Community Participation of Older Adults: Evidence From China

This article explores the association between Internet use and community participation of older adults using data from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS) in 2016. The empirical results indicate that there is a significant positive association between Internet use and the intention of community participation of older adults. Moreover, mediating effect investigation shows that Internet use promotes the intention of community engagement of the older adults by improving subjective health. The benchmark results are still consistent after addressing the potential endogeneity by employing propensity score matching method. Finally, subsample analysis suggests no significant difference in this positive effect between urban and rural older adults.