Multilevel Modeling of Rural Livelihood Strategies from Peasant to Village Level in Henan Province, China

Le Zhang,Xiaobo Hua,Huan Zhang,Chuanqing Liao

doi:10.3390/su10092967

Le Zhang, Xiaobo Hua + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su10092967

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Aug 21, 2018
Citations: 11	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Kyoto University, Jiangxi Normal University

Abstract

With the rapid development of China’s economy, Chinese peasants now have a growing number of livelihood choices. Rural livelihood strategies are primarily a matter of choice, while the characteristics of the household and village may affect the decision-making process. However, until now, there has been a lack of empirical studies that have been carried out for the identification of the multi-level determinants of rural livelihood strategies. To fill this gap, this paper applies multi-level modeling approach to model rural livelihood strategies in Henan Province, China. The results show that rural livelihood strategies have insignificant between-group variability at the household level, and significant between-group variability at the village level, with the variance at the peasant level accounting for the largest proportion of the total variance. Younger peasants who are male and have a higher education level are more likely to engage in only off-farm work, while peasants with the opposite characteristics are more likely to engage in only on-farm work. Pluriactive peasants integrate the characteristics of the other two groups, and generally live closer to urban areas than the others. In order to reduce rural income inequality and sustain agricultural production, the Chinese government should design effective policies to make farming an appealing livelihood choice, particularly for the young generation.

Highlights

Since the implementation of reforms and the opening up policy in 1978, China has experienced rapid economic growth, and this process has contributed to 70% of the reduction in poverty across the world [1]
The intraclass correlation coefficient is 0 in the a (1), a (2) and a (3) models, indicating that no variance can be attributed to the household level
The intraclass correlation coefficient is 0.123, 0.166 and 0.155 in the a (1), a (2) and a (3) models, respectively, indicating that 12.3%, 16.6%, and 15.5% of the variance can be attributed to the village level, respectively, while the remaining variance is at the peasant level

Summary

Introduction

Since the implementation of reforms and the opening up policy in 1978, China has experienced rapid economic growth, and this process has contributed to 70% of the reduction in poverty across the world [1]. In the context of dramatically decreasing incidences of extreme poverty, many Chinese peasants are being left behind and the achievements of development are not being shared [2,3]. The national Gini coefficient for rural China increased from 0.21 in 1978 to 0.31 in 1990, 0.35 in 2002, and 0.40 in 2013 [7,8]. It is worth noting that China’s ability to produce enough food and sustain agricultural development could be severely threatened because fewer young people are choosing farming as a vocation, and the average age of farmers is rising. Numerous studies have shown that these severe social problems are closely related to rural livelihood strategies [9,10,11,12]

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