Abstract

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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title>
<jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to study a new pathway out of poverty for rural areas through cultivating non-farm employment: the new media utilization.</jats:p>
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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title>
<jats:p>The authors utilize two waves of nationwide micro survey data in China, China General Social Survey 2005 and 2013, to investigate the impacts of new media coverage on non-farm employment and earnings in rural China with the ordered probit model and instrument variables.</jats:p>
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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title>
<jats:p>The authors find that promotion of new media coverage can significantly enhance rural non-farm employment in China by 10-20 percent and ultimately increase earnings for rural residents. The findings provide new evidence for the new media as a potential newly emerging pathway out of poverty for rural areas. The conclusions are robust regarding a variety of controls and model specifications, evaluations with alternative measures, examinations within different subsamples, and estimations with constructed pseudo panels.</jats:p>
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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Social implications</jats:title>
<jats:p>Encouragement of new media coverage in rural China not only can improve the rural non-farm employment and living standards but also can contribute toward narrowing the differences between urban and rural areas, thereby balancing regional development.</jats:p>
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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title>
<jats:p>It contributes to the existing literature through primarily empirically investigating the economic functions of new media in rural China.</jats:p>
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