农地流转、职业分层与减贫效应

Land Transfers,Occupational Stratification and Poverty Reduction

本文采用中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据,从理论和实证上研究了农地流转、职业分层对农村减贫的影响。研究表明:农村贫困家庭农地转出是推动家庭职业分层和减贫的重要动力;农地转出可以通过推动农村贫困家庭成员职业分层,进而影响贫困家庭减贫,职业分层是农地流转影响贫困家庭减贫的重要机制;农地转出对农村贫困家庭收入的影响,会因家庭所从事的非农工作的“职业声望”等级不同而表现出明显差异;对农地流转的多维减贫效应研究发现,农地转出对农村贫困家庭相对收入水平和生活水平的提高均具有重要影响。进一步扩展分析发现:相比土地价值较高的家庭,农地转出对土地价值较低的家庭具有更显著的减贫效应;贫困率越高的村,农地转出对提高家庭人均纯收入和降低家庭贫困发生率具有更显著的促进作用。

Summary:Poverty is a worldwide problem.As the largest developing country in the world,China has always regarded poverty alleviation,especially rural poverty,as an important goal of social and economic development.Since China s reform and opening up,the reform of agricultural land transfers has played an active role in promoting the establishment of a rural land market,the large-scale operation of agricultural land and the flow of rural labor.Rural laborers are increasingly engaged in non-agricultural employment,which is becoming an important factor in increasing farmers income.In addition,with the increase in the scale of rural labor mobility,farmers career choices also show diversified characteristics.Against the background of labor market segmentation and income inequality,migrant workers face unequal treatment,including occupational discrimination and wage discrimination,which affects the role of farmers career choices in alleviating poverty.Rural poverty reduction is closely related to the transfers of agricultural land and occupational stratification.However,the role of occupational stratification and the promotion of agricultural land transfers in alleviating the poverty of farmers and the mechanism behind such an impact are still unclear.We study these issues both theoretically and empirically.Although there are many studies on the relationship between land transfers,farmer household characteristics and farmers poverty alleviation,the predicament faced by rural poor families is that their scale of land is small,their family labor force is insufficient,the professional skills of family members are not strong and there is employment discrimination in the non-agricultural labor market,meaning that poor families have incentives to transfer land but face occupational choice constraints.These issues imply that there is much uncertainty over the poverty reduction effect of the non-agricultural employment promoted by agricultural land transfers.In addition,few studies on the relationship between agricultural land transfers,occupational stratification and poverty reduction use a unified theoretical framework.We construct a two-sector model of urban and rural areas based on the career choices of rural poor families and the transfer of agricultural land to analyze theoretically the impact of agricultural land transfers and occupational stratification on farmers poverty.On the basis of the theoretical model,we use data from the China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)to conduct an empirical analysis of the impact of agricultural land transfers and occupational stratification on poverty reduction,and we perform an in-depth analysis of the underlying mechanism.This paper makes two contributions to the literature.(1)By constructing a urban-rural two-sector model based on the occupational choices of rural poor families and the behavior of agricultural land transfers,we theoretically analyze the improvement in the degree of marketization of agricultural land,the impact of the farmland transfer behavior of rural poor families on family career choices and the impact on rural poverty reduction from a multi-dimensional perspective.Theoretical research shows that agricultural land transfers can increase the income of poor families by promoting occupational transfers,reducing the poverty level of rural poor families in terms of their absolute income level,relative income level and living standard.(2)Using the CFPS data,we empirically examine the impact of agricultural land transfers and occupational stratification on the poverty reduction of rural poor families.We find that agricultural land transfers are an important driving force for promoting occupational stratification and poverty alleviation in rural poor families.The transfer of agricultural land also promotes the occupational stratification of poor rural families,which affects poverty reduction for poor families.The poverty alleviation effect we find implies that the transfer of agricultural land has an important impact on the relative income level and living standards of poor rural families.