Research On The Impact Of Internet On Self-employment

In recent years,with the development of economy and the improvement of market vitality,more and more labor force choose self-employment.The rapid development of self-employment has also attracted the attention of scholars and national economic policy makers.Part of the reason is that self-employment helps to alleviate the employment pressure in the labor market.More importantly,self-employment plays a positive role in reducing poverty rate,narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor and regional economic growth in the national economy.On the other hand,with the progress of social technology,the Internet has become an important driving force of social and economic development.As an important part of the national economy,self-employment economy is inevitably affected by the Internet.In this context,this paper focuses on the following issues: first,what is the current situation of self-employment in China;second,how does the Internet affect the self employment rate,in general,whether it promotes self-employment of labor force or inhibits self-employment activities;third,what is the impact of using the Internet on individual self-employment behavior.Around the above problems,this paper starts the following work from the theoretical and empirical aspects.First,we analyze the current situation of the development of Internet and self employment in China,and start from the reality of the relationship between Internet and self-employment.Then it analyzes the impact of Internet on self-employment from the macro and micro perspectives.At the macro level,Internet application affects self employment through two dimensions of "technology effect" and "information effect"."Technological effect" refers to the impact of Internet as a technological progress,including three aspects: changing the structure of labor market,social production mode and self-employed action space."Information effect" refers to the impact of the Internet as an information transmission tool,which affects self-employment activities by improving information matching efficiency,enriching information sources and reducing information asymmetry.These two effects have both promoting and inhibiting effects on self-employed activities,and what is the net impact of the Internet on self-employed activities? Then we use the provincial panel data of 2005-2016 to conduct empirical research,and we draw the following conclusions:(1)as a whole,the Internet has a significant positive impact on self-employed activities.(2)The positive impact of the Internet on self-employment is mainly reflected after 2010,but not before 2010.This is because the rise of the mobile Internet after 2010 further promotes the improvement of the network penetration rate,and the application of the mobile Internet is more integrated into our life,providing new business channels for individual self-employed activities,and bringing richer andmore convenient information.(3)After the regional return,we found that the Internet had the greatest effect on self employment in the eastern region,followed by the western region,and the least effect on self employment in the central region.As the macro analysis only reflects the supply side of information technology,individuals will have different effects on whether to use the Internet or not and the degree of use.Therefore,we will further analyze the impact of using the Internet on the process of self employment and self employment.In the process of self employment,the use of Internet can help individuals improve their ability to identify entrepreneurial opportunities,reduce the financial constraints of entering self employment,expand social networks and promote their self employment;in self employment business activities,the use of Internet can reduce operating costs,improve self-employed business capabilities,expand the scope of business market and improve self employment income.Then we use the micro data of CGSS to make empirical test,and draw the following conclusions:(1)the use of Internet can effectively promote the self-employed and self-employed business income.(2)Whether for entrepreneurial self-employed or survival self-employed,the Internet has a significant role in promoting self-employed and self-employed income,and has a greater role in promoting entrepreneurial self-employed.(3)Compared with urban areas,the Internet plays a more important role in promoting self employment and increasing self-employed income in rural areas.(4)The use of Internet has the greatest impact on the self-employment of individuals under 35 years old,and the least impact on individuals over 50 years old.However,in terms of self employment income,for the self-employed under 35 years old,the use of Internet has no significant impact on their self employment income.For the self-employed over 35 years old,the use of Internet can promote the increase of self employment income.