Study on the effect of rural population aging on Farmers’ participation in collective management, protection of small-scale irrigation and water conservancy facilities: Taking Sichuan Province as an example

Abstract

In recent years, a large number of infrastructure construction including small-scale farmland and water conservancy facilities have been carried out in rural areas of China. However, with the acceleration of urbanization process, a large number of young and middle-aged labor force has been transferred from rural areas to urban areas. Rural areas in China are facing serious aging problems, and the supply lack of labor force is insufficient, resulting in the collective management and protection of small-scale agricultural water conservancy facilities in a dilemma. Based on the survey data of 918 rural households in Jintang County, Meishan City and Chongzhou City, Sichuan Province, this paper uses ordered probit model to analyze the impact of rural population aging on rural households’ participation in collective management and protection of small-scale farmland water conservancy facilities. The results show that the aging degree of rural population is high, and it has a significant negative impact on the participation of farmers in the collective management and protection of farmland and water conservancy facilities. The increase of the cultivated land area of farmers has a alleviating negative effect of rural population aging.