From field to family: exploring the gendered effect of agricultural mechanization in rural China

Does ICT change household decision-making power of the left-behind women? A Case from China

Even though it is widely recognized that giving farmers more secure land rights may increase agricultural investment, scholars contend that, in the case of China, such a policy might undermine the function of land as a social safety net and, as a consequence, not be sustainable or command broad support. Data from three provinces, one of which had adopted a policy to increase security of tenure in advance of the others, suggest that greater tenure security, especially if combined with transferability of land, had a positive impact on agricultural investment and, within the time frame considered, led neither to an increase in inequality of land distribution nor a reduction in households' ability to cope with exogenous shocks. Household support for more secure property rights is increased by their access to other insurance mechanisms, suggesting some role of land as a safety net. At the same time, past exposure to this type of land right has a much larger impact quantitatively, suggesting that a large part of the resistance to changed property rights arrangements disappears as household familiarity with such rights increases.

When China's leaders launched rural reforms in the late 1970s, they acknowledged the nation's need to modify its commitment to egalitarianism.1 Slogans such as Tt is glorious to be rich!' and 'Some areas will lead; others will follow!' signalled this fundamental shift in ideology. Leaders backed up these exhortations with a series of concrete policy actions ? establishing the Special Economic Zones and implementing the East Coast-first policy, introducing financial reforms, and initiating the rural industrialization movement. In China's version of the 'trickle down' theory, certain core areas were to take the lead in the modernization process and provide models for other areas to later emulate. Adopting strategies that had been employed

Existing research on the antecedents of subjective well-being (SWB), which comprises life satisfaction and happiness, remains inconclusive. Some studies suggest that increasing income enhances SWB, while others emphasize the role of income comparison within reference groups in influencing SWB. The role of subjective financial well-being in enhancing subjective well-being is also inconclusive. On the one hand, financial well-being may contribute to increasing SWB; on the other, subjective financial well-being is a characteristic compared to reference groups, and this comparison is what influences SWB. This study, therefore, sets out to answer the question: How does social comparison and subjective financial well-being influence SWB? We predict that social comparison influences SWB (life satisfaction and happiness) through the mediation of subjective financial well-being. Data from 3,591 respondents (1,750 females, 1,841 males, aged 21 - 60 years; M = 30.81, SD = 7.51) in the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS 5) were analyzed using path analysis. The measures in this study include financial well-being, life satisfaction, happiness, and social comparison taken from IFLS-5 Book III A. The research findings indicate that social comparison does not directly influence life satisfaction and happiness. However, the influence of social comparison on both is mediated by subjective financial well-being. The practical implications of this research suggest that individuals who are happy and satisfied with their lives need to have at least one satisfying life domain, such as financial well-being, and focus on subjective self-evaluation rather than constantly comparing themselves with reference groups.

Cooking fuel choices and subjective well-being in rural China: Implications for a complete energy transition

China's rural economic reforms radically altered land tenure in rural China. With the granting of land use rights and residual income rights to farming households between 1979 and 1983, agriculture shifted from a collective-based to a familybased system. Land was not privatized, however. Ownership remained "collective", with local officials, typically at the village level, exercising a major influence over the allocation of land and the way households could use land. The initial land allocations to families were typically based on household size, household labour supply, or both. The central government's policy was that these allocations were supposed to be for 15 years. In some villages, land use contracts have been respected; in other villages, however, local leaders have periodically redistributed land among households and have intervened throughout the reform period to determine how farmers are able to use the land. The initial reforms triggered an unprecedented acceleration of agricultural growth in China. From 1979 to 1984, the gross value of agricultural output increased in real terms at an annual rate of 7.6 per cent, and grain production rose by 4.9 per cent annually.' Empirical studies attribute a significant part of this increase to enhanced incentives, as farmers were able to keep the output and

The paper uses qualitative and quantitative data collected by the Wellbeing in Developing Countries ESRC research group in Bangladesh and Thailand to explore the extent to which objective need deprivation predicts subjective and psychological wellbeing, controlling for location, socio-economic status, and gender. The regression analysis is triangulated with qualitative analysis of three illustrative case studies to explore why people experiencing great need deprivation nevertheless report high subjective and psychological wellbeing and propose factors that might support their resilience. The paper reports perhaps unsurprisingly that need deprivation was lower in Thailand than Bangladesh, and subjective and psychological wellbeing higher, with the exception of life satisfaction which was higher in Bangladesh. While goal attainment was significantly associated with affect and life satisfaction in both countries, in Thailand life satisfaction and goal attainment were negatively correlated (−.334), so the more goals respondents felt they had attained, the less satisfied they were. These apparent anomalies are explored further using data from the case studies. The findings confirm that although measures of subjective and psychological wellbeing are correlated, they are not substitutable. For example, subjective wellbeing, especially positive affect, is more influenced by need deprivation than psychological wellbeing, while psychological wellbeing is more influenced by demographic factors, especially in Thailand. Finally, the paper discusses whether the distinct relationships of subjective and psychological wellbeing with need deprivation and income have any implications for policymakers.

The aim of the present study was to explore the relationship among subjective illness impact, subjective well-being, and psoriasis severity as assessed by dermatologists. Furthermore, subjective well-being of psoriasis patients was compared to available norm data. Fifty-nine psoriasis patients participated in this study. The following measures were administered: (a) the Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure - Revised (PRISM-R), yielding Self-Illness Separation (SIS), and Illness Perception Measure (IPM); (b) subjective health status; (c) life satisfaction, and (d) psychological well-being. In addition, the Psoriasis Area and Severity Index (PASI) was determined by dermatologists. Psoriasis patients scored significantly below the norm data on subjective health status and psychological well-being. No differences were found concerning life satisfaction. PASI failed to correlate significantly with any of the disease impact and subjective health measures. Neither did SIS correlate significantly with any of the subjective health measures, whereas IPM was negatively associated with subjective health status, life satisfaction, and psychologic well-being. In a regression analysis with PASI as the dependent measures, none of the subjective health measures showed up as a relevant predictor. In comparison with the norm data, psoriasis patients report less subjective health status and well-being whereas their life satisfaction is not affected. There is no clear association among illness impact, subjective well-being, and illness severity as assessed by dermatologists.

Due to the popularization of the Internet in rural China, mobile Internet use has become an essential part of rural residents’ lives and work. No studies, however, have investigated the potential effect of smartphone use on quality of life among rural residents in China. This study thus applies ordinary least squared, conditional quantile and instrumental variable techniques to survey data for 493 rural Chinese households to assess the impact of smartphone use (SU) on their subjective well-being (SWB). The results reveal an association between SU and increases in both life satisfaction and happiness that remains even after we adjust for possible endogeneity. The analysis also indicates that SU intensity is associated with lower levels of both SWB measures, especially when it exceeds 3 h per day. Quantile estimates further indicate that in both participation and intensity, SU has a much greater impact on SWB at the median level of the SWB distribution. Our multiple mediation results show that the positive SU–SWB linkage is partially mediated by both farm income and off-farm income. This may suggest that the local government should invest in Internet infrastructure to promote agricultural activities and develop specific rural services to boost farm income via better access to information of agricultural production and market networks. Mobile information and communication technologies can also provide more opportunities for rural entrepreneurship and innovation, in particular by motivating young farmers to actively engage in rural e-business ventures which can raise off-farm income.

Using recent national longitudinal survey data from the China Family Panel Studies in 2012 and 2014 and a combination of propensity score matching and difference-in-differences methods, this article examines the association between China’s rural Dibao program participation and recipients’ life satisfaction and explore how perceived social status and confidence about future might mediate this relationship. We also investigate and compare these effects and mediation pathways across young, middle-aged, and older adults. We find robust positive effect of rural Dibao participation on recipients’ life satisfaction and persistent mediation effects of both perceived social status and confidence about future in this relationship in the full sample. The analysis among different age groups revealed heterogenous life satisfaction effects of rural Dibao participation and different psychological mediation effects in this relationship. The empirical evidence from this article suggests that welfare programs such as rural Dibao can help improve recipients’ subjective well-being. Nevertheless, measures to remove welfare stigma and enhance in-kind supports are needed to help the poor achieve greater subjective well-being, especially among middle-aged adults whose work and family support needs are often difficult to be met.

"Gone with the land": Effects of land expropriation on health and subjective well-being in rural China.

Subjective health is understood as a multidimensional construct that encompasses the physical, mental and social dimensions of a person’s well-being. Promoting the subjective health and well-being of children and adolescents has strong public health relevance because health impairments in childhood and adolescence are often associated with long-term health problems in adulthood. Therefore, it is very important to gain information about potential risk and resource factors involved. This article presents current prevalences for subjective health, life satisfaction and psychosomatic health complaints among children and adolescents in Germany aged 11, 13 and 15 years from the 2017/18 Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children (HBSC) study (N=4,347, 53.0% girls). It also examines the sociodemographic and psychosocial factors that influence subjective well-being. Most children and adolescents provided positive ratings of their health and life satisfaction. Nevertheless, about one third of girls and one fifth of boys were affected by multiple psychosomatic health complaints. Impairments in subjective well-being were particularly evident in girls, older adolescents, young people with low levels of family affluence and those under a lot of pressure at school. In contrast, high family support was associated with better subjective well-being. These results illustrate the need for target group-specific prevention and health promotion measures aimed at improving the subjective health and well-being of children and adolescents.

In what forms are agribusinesses entering agriculture and interacting with farmers? How are land, labor and capital now controlled by corporate and individual actors, and then organized into agricultural production? How does such control and organization shape the relationships between the actors? In this article we argue that agrarian capitalism is expanding in China. The means of production, such as capital and land, are increasingly controlled by agribusiness, while direct producers increasingly sell their labor for a living. We document various forms in which agribusiness companies are conducting transactions with individual agricultural producers. We also argue that China's unique system of land rights featuring collective ownership but individualized usage rights has acted as a powerful force in shaping interactions between agribusiness and direct producers. It provides farmers with a source of economic income and political bargaining power, and restricts corporate actors from dispossessing farmers of their land. We find strong norms protecting farmers' collective land rights in the agricultural sector, contrary to the received wisdom about weak protection of land rights in China. In the rest of the paper, we first review the policy context in which this transformation has taken place. Next we introduce our method of data collection, summarize the five forms of agribusiness-farmer interaction found in our study, and analyze each of the five forms in depth. We conclude with a discussion of the causes and characteristics of the rise of agrarian capitalism, with a focus on the role of the land rights system.

Income inequality in Hong Kong has worsened dramatically during the past decade. About 19.9% of the population is below the poverty line with more than 1.34 million people. Among those poor households in 2013, 126,700 (23%) of them have children. Facing the large amount of households with children living in poverty, there has been a significant increase of studies examining the impact of poverty on family and child well-being. However, while subjective well-being is linked to the cognitive (life satisfaction) and emotional (happiness)well-being of both children and parents, studies on the subjective well-being of parents in poverty, which has been suggested to affect children’s well-being, are still very scarce. Besides, given the dynamic change of living arrangement in Hong Kong, few studies has investigated the moderating effect of having children and family structure on the association between poverty and subjective well-being. Therefore, this research aims at filling these gaps by addressing the role of children and different family structures on parents’ subjective well-being, and its relationship with poverty.
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\nUsing the first wave data of Hong Kong Panel Study of Social Dynamics 2011, which is a territory-wide representative panel survey on households and individuals, this study (1) examined the impact of poverty on parents’ subjective well-being, (2) explored the effects of having children, parental status and family structures on subjective well-being, (3) investigated the different effects of poverty and family structure on subjective well-being from a life course perspective, and (4) tested the role of having children, and different family structures in the relationship between poverty and subjective well-being.
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\nResults suggest the following: (1) there is a distinction in happiness between adults with and without children. Being poor is negatively related to the life satisfaction of parents but not adults without children; (2) poverty is consistently associated with decreased life satisfaction and happiness of parents, and single parents with children demonstrate negative correlation with their happiness. Besides, the negative association between poverty and subjective well-being is weakened once health factors are taken into account, which indicates that health, behaviors, and community engagement may be the mediators of the relationship between poverty and parents’ happiness; (3) subjective well-being of younger and older parents are affected differently by poverty, family structure, and socio-demographic factors; (4) factors affecting life satisfaction and happiness are different, despite certain similarities; (5) without considering the interactions with neighbors, being poor interacts with having more than three children and generates positive effect on parents’ happiness. Furthermore, family structure is suggested to moderate the relationship between poverty and subjective well-being. Specifically, living in households consisting grandparents, parents, and children further reduces poor parents’ life satisfaction, while their happiness would be worsened if they were single parents with children.
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\nThis study illuminates the role of children and family structure in the relation to poverty and subjective well-being, and it provides needed information to develop policies that are more effective to alleviate poverty and improve the subjective well-being of the poor in specific vulnerable groups.

The U-shaped relationship between age and life satisfaction has been well documented in developed contexts, such as the Western developed world and urban China, but lifespan changes in life satisfaction in less developed contexts, such as rural China, remain underexplored. Applying multilevel growth curve models to a longitudinal dataset (2006, 2009 and 2014 waves) of 1,959 rural Chinese, the overall pattern of life satisfaction across individuals of different ages at baseline, as well as changes in life satisfaction as individuals age, are investigated. Results show that in rural China, the overall pattern of life satisfaction across different ages at baseline resembles a J-shape, with the lowest point occurring at a much earlier age (21), compared to midlife, as observed in Western societies and urban China. In terms of longitudinal changes, individuals aged 18 to 45 at baseline experience a deterioration in life satisfaction over time, with younger individuals experiencing a faster decline, while for those aged 46 and above at baseline, life satisfaction shows an increase over time, with older individuals experiencing more improvements over the eight-year interval. In rural China, young adults experience the lowest level of life satisfaction at baseline. Longitudinally, their life satisfaction further declines the most over the next eight years. Therefore, more targeted policies and support systems should be developed to improve the life satisfaction for young adults in rural China, not only for the present but also over the long term, ultimately contributing to the improvement of societal wellbeing in rural China.