The United Nations Organization states that well-being consists of universal goals and aspirations in human life throughout the world. The arrival of the digital age has a profound impact on humans’ way of production and life. While material living standards continue to improve, happiness has become the pursuit of social residents. Based on the theory of happiness economics, we use the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) data to construct an Ordered Probit fixed-effect model and systematically investigate the dividend and disparities of digital literacy on rural residents’ subjective well-being in China, such as age, gender, region, education attainment, and so on. The results indicate that digital literacy significantly strengthens rural residents’ subjective well-being. Under the influence of digital literacy, subjective well-being is heterogeneous in individuals’ natural and social attributes. Further mechanism tests show that rural residents’ digital literacy strengthens subjective well-being through income generation, consumption upgrading, and social belonging effects. In consequence, the government should promote the construction of digital infrastructure, focus on the penetration and quality of digital technology, digital skill education and training, and guiding residents to utilize digital technology properly. Our study furthers the understanding of residents’ well-being and highlights digital literacy as a means to boost well-being, reduce regional development gaps, and support sustainable development.

The responsible low-carbon behavior of household residents is a crucial factor for the purpose of achieving carbon neutrality in the economy and society. Based on the peer effects theory, this study constructs a fixed-effects model to empirically analyze the existence, heterogeneity, and action mechanism of peer effects in household carbon emission behavior, which uses panel data from the China Household Finance Survey (CHFS). The results indicate that peer effects have a significantly positive impact on residents’ carbon emission behavior, and the results are verified by the robustness test in various ways. Further mechanism tests show that peer effects influence carbon emission behavior through methods including the learning imitation mechanism and competitive imitation mechanism. In addition, we find that peer effects have different impacts on residents’ carbon emission behavior in varying regions, income levels, education levels, and ages groups. This study aims to embed residents’ carbon emission behavior into the strong relationship between surrounding groups, raise consumers low-carbon awareness through publicity, guidance, and group interaction, form a low-carbon atmosphere for the whole society, and contribute to the realization of Sustainable Development Goals.