China’s new-type urbanization is narrowing the urban-rural human well-being gap through heterogeneous pathways while confronting the new challenge of the digital economy

Whether the decade-long development of China’s new-type urbanization has genuinely achieved its intended goal of narrowing the well-being gap between urban and rural residents remains a question without certain answer for both theoretical and empirical investigation. To examine the impact of new-type urbanization on the urban-rural human well-being gap, this paper constructed a theoretical analytical framework, in which their levels were evaluated and spatiotemporal evolution patterns were explored. Furthermore, a two-way fixed effects model was employed to quantitatively test the mechanism through which new-type urbanization affected urban-rural human well-being gap. Besides, the moderating effects of transportation infrastructure and the digital economy were also discussed. The results suggested that new-type urbanization in China had significantly narrowed the human well-being gap between urban and rural areas, and the effect presented both urban-rural and spatiotemporal heterogeneity. Transportation infrastructure development enhanced the effect of new-type urbanization in reducing the well-being gap, whereas the development of the digital economy may become a challenge to this narrowing process. Additionally, unexpected findings offered further insights: (1) industrial structure upgrading and higher levels of environmental governance both expanded the well-being gap between urban and rural residents; (2) new-type urbanization improved well-being more strongly for rural residents than for urban ones; and (3) the process of reducing the urban-rural human well-being gap may susceptible to major public events such as the COVID‑19 pandemic, in which rural areas recovering more slowly than urban areas. Based on the research results, the paper proposed policy recommendations to advance future urbanization strategies under the objective of promoting well-being equalization between urban and rural residents.