Internet Access And Youth Human Capital

There is a common saying that "children should not lose at the starting line",which shows that families and society have begun to pay attention to the development of children’s early human capital,especially during childhood and adolescence.Cognitive ability is the core of human capital,the gap in adolescence will continue to widen and led to income difference in adulthood.With the rapid development of the Internet,greatly expanding the channels and abilities of young people to obtain information,their behaviors are becoming more integrated with their cognitive activities.Therefore,during this period,exposure to the Internet is likely to be an important factor affecting the development and accumulation of human capital in adolescents.Based on the CFPS,this paper uses the "Broadband China" project,as an exogenous impact of Internet access,identifies the impact of the Internet on the children’ human capital,especially the impact on their cognitive development,by using DID method.This paper also considers the differences in the impact of children’s gender,urban-rural areas,and regions,and explores two possible channels of influence,that is,family investment in human capital and changes in the attitude and behavior of the children,which can further supplement relevant empirical evidence.Empirical results show that:(1)Internet access has a significant positive effect on the children’ human capital,increasing total cognitive ability,mathematical ability and word ability by 0.882,0.658 and 0.450 points respectively(4.1%,5.5% and 4.6%).(2)The impact has gender,urban-rural and regional differences.Boys and children in urban and eastern areas,gained more significant cognitive improvements from Internet access,due to differences in Internet use preferences and efficiency.(3)Internet access may influence children’ s human capital through two paths: family investment and children’ s behavior and attitude change.Therefore,this result can provide suggestions for education inequality and educational informatization,but also empirical evidence for promoting "new infrastructure".