Abstract
This study analyzes the mechanism of coexistence of non-agricultural part-time work of farmer households and large-scale cultivation of cultivated land, and the effect of non-agricultural part-time work of the large farmer households on the agricultural labor productivity. Results indicate that non-agricultural part-time work of large farmer households promotes the agricultural labor productivity, particularly for those with higher non-agricultural incomes, younger age, higher education level and shorter distance between working places in urban sectors and rural residence. At the mean value of the samples, non-agricultural part-time work of the large farmer households will improve agricultural labor productivity by 27.1%. These results remain consistent after we experiment several robustness checks and the instrumental variable method. Further, it is worth stressing that non-agricultural part-time work inhibits the agricultural production for farmer households with labors less than three, while it exhibits positive effects for those with labors more than three. Finally, analysis of mechanism suggests that non-agricultural part-time work of large farmer households enhances the productivity via entering the agricultural association, increasing farm mechanization degree, and promoting the centralized production and farm management on the transferred farmland. It’s suggestive to maintain total area of the transferred farmland to avoid the reverse effects and then the optimal total cultivated area within the range of (100, 200) Mu. Policy implications of our work are discussed.
Highlights
Market economy in China has greatly progressed and provided amounting job opportunities in urban regions since the reformation and opening-up policy in 1978 (Zhang, 2014; Liu & Shi, 2010, 2015; Qin & Zhang, 2016; Huang et al, 2018)
It’s imperative to illustrate the effect of non-agricultural part-time work of the large farmer households on agricultural labor productivity, which benefits for distinguishing the changing characteristics of the influential paths associated with the development trend of Chinese agricultural production in future
We utilized outincome as the key explanatory variable and ln falacity as the explained variable to obtain the regression results in the third column by repeating the relevant regression process of the former two columns with the data of the yearly average income of a certain farmer working in cities temporarily higher than zero (235 samples in total)
Summary
Market economy in China has greatly progressed and provided amounting job opportunities in urban regions since the reformation and opening-up policy in 1978 (Zhang, 2014; Liu & Shi, 2010, 2015; Qin & Zhang, 2016; Huang et al, 2018). It should be noted that in the process of China’s population urbanization, there is a significant population flow characteristic for rural farmers to be engaged in non-agricultural part-time work during slack time (Zhao & Jiang, 2015; Zhao et al, 2020). Changing tendency towards the large-scale agricultural production has been highlighted as the deepening reform of the transfer system of rural farmland (Zhao & Jiang, 2015; Wang et al, 2016). It’s imperative to illustrate the effect of non-agricultural part-time work of the large farmer households on agricultural labor productivity, which benefits for distinguishing the changing characteristics of the influential paths associated with the development trend of Chinese agricultural production in future
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