社会信任与农村劳动力非农就业决策研究

Social Trust and Non-agricultural Employment Decision of Rural Labor

利用中国家庭追踪调查(CFPS)数据实证考察社会信任如何影响农村劳动力非农就业决策。研究发现:社会信任水平的持续提升和信任半径的不断拓展会促使农村劳动力选择非农就业,该结论在一系列稳健性检验中仍然成立;社会信任通过增强风险承担意愿、提升人力资本层次和延展社会网络半径促进非农就业。进一步探究社会信任对非农就业演进全过程的作用,社会信任水平越高的农村劳动力,非农就业转移程度越高;动态识别不同社会发展阶段的历史烙印影响发现,成长于法律制度更完善、劳动力流动更自由的社会环境中的农村劳动力,感知到的社会信任对非农就业的促进作用更强。因此,应营造利于非农转移的相互信任、互惠互利型发展环境,发挥社会信任对增强农村脱贫内生动力、巩固脱贫攻坚成果的积极作用。

Over time,population mobility has gradually increased,management systems have progressively improved,and acquaintance societies have transformed into anonymous societies,paving the way for social trust to fully leverage its potential from rural to modern society.Social trust,functioning as social capital by reducing transaction costs and simplifying social operations,continues to reshape non-agricultural employment decision-making for rural labor forces.However,current research on trust culture and labor mobility is primarily based on the social development stage of growth retardation,marketization,and serious urban-rural segmentation.These studies focus on exploring the impact of restricted trust within rural groups,with few investigating how social trust compatible with the current social“anonymity”development trend works.This paper employs China Family Panel Studies(CFPS)data in 2016 to investigate the impact of social trust,beyond restricted trust,on non-agricultural employment decision-making among rural labor forces.Results show that as social trust levels and trust radius expand,rural laborers are more likely to choose non-agricultural employment.Robustness tests,including placebo tests and instrumental variable estimation,confirm the validity of these findings.Social trust promotes non-agricultural employment decision-making by enhancing risk-taking willingness,improving human capital,and extending the social network radius.The paper also explores the role of social trust in the entire process of non-agricultural employment evolution,finding that higher social trust levels in rural labor forces correspond to greater degrees of non-agricultural employment transfer.Furthermore,the study identifies historical imprinting influences from different stages of social development,showing that social trust has a stronger role in promoting non-agricultural employment among rural laborers who grow up in environments with complete legal systems and free labor mobility.Compared to previous literature,this paper expands on three aspects.First,it examines the impact of social trust with anonymity and universality on the non-agricultural employment decisions of rural labor forces and their mechanisms.This enriches and expands previous research on“trust culture and labor flow”.Second,unlike previous literature that primarily measures individual social trust through a single dimension of trust level,this paper introduces Fukuyama’s concept of“trust radius”and constructs a comprehensive analytical framework encompassing trust level and trust radius to fully capture the“trust differential pattern”characteristic of China’s agricultural civilization and reveal the complete picture of social trust.Lastly,by constructing“degree of non-agricultural employment transfer”,“birth sequence”,and“transfer sequence”,this paper extends the study of the gradual transfer of rural labor forces from“agricultural employment”to“non-agricultural employment”.It dynamically identifies the heterogeneous impact of social trust on individual non-agricultural employment decision-making for rural labor forces born at different times and different stages of labor force transfer.This study sheds light on the internal mechanism of social trust in the rural labor force’s non-agricultural employment decision-making to some extent.It offers a new perspective to comprehend how trust culture affects labor mobility and provides a theoretical foundation to promote the profound transfer of the rural labor force to non-agricultural industries.This strengthens the endogenous power of rural poverty alleviation,consolidates the accomplishments of poverty alleviation,and ultimately achieves common prosperity.