农民个体资本、数字技术使用与生计韧性

Farmers’Individual Capital,ICT Adoption and Livelihood Resilience

在脱贫攻坚战取得胜利、全面建成小康社会后,当国家外援式帮扶政策优化调整时,如何使脱贫户实现内生性可持续发展是巩固脱贫攻坚成果并全面推进乡村振兴的重点。从生计韧性角度切入,采用陕西省518份农民调查数据,建立结构方程模型,探究农民个体资本、数字技术使用及生计韧性之间的影响关系。结果表明,农民个体资本是提升其生计韧性的基础;同时,数字技术使用从缓冲能力、学习能力和自组织能力三个维度提升了生计韧性,且在农民个体资本对生计韧性的影响过程中起到部分中介效应。为此,增强农民生计韧性应遵循在个体层面提升农民个体资本、在社会支持层面加强数字技术嵌入与赋能的思路,推动实现农民内生性可持续发展。

In 2020,China’s poverty alleviation has made decisive achievements,and the regional overall poverty problem and the absolute poverty problem of the rural population in China have been basically solved.But when the national poverty alleviation policy is optimized and adjusted,enhancing the endogenous sustainable development capacity of poverty-stricken areas and households has become the focus of consolidating the achievements of poverty alleviation and comprehensively promoting rural revitalization.Livelihood resilience,which focuses specifically on the ability of individuals to withstand external shocks and disturbances with their own capital,is a necessary attribute for achieving sustainable development.However,previous studies paid less attention to the disturbance of social factors and the driving effect of social environmental factors on the construction of livelihood resilience.Using 518 farmer survey data from Shaanxi Province,this paper explores the mechanism by which farmers’individual capital affects their livelihood resilience through ICT adoption.Statistical analysis shows that social networks are the most important factor for farmers to resist risks and develop sustainably.The empirical study finds that farmers’individual capital and ICT adoption are important variables in the construction of farmers’livelihood resilience.Specifically,the more individual capital farmers possess,the more likely they are to have higher levels of livelihood resilience.The higher the level of ICT adoption by farmers,the more they tend to have higher levels of livelihood resilience.At the same time,the impact mechanism of farmers’individual capital and ICT adoption on livelihood resilience shows an intermediary effect:individual capital—use of digital technology—livelihood resilience.In this path,ICT adoption partially mediates the impact of individual capital on the level of livelihood resilience,and the indirect effect of ICT adoption on livelihood resilience is greater than the direct effect,and the results are robust.Further analysis shows that there is no significant gender difference in the impact of farmers’individual capital on livelihood resilience.Compared with previous literature,this paper expands on the following aspects:first,the risk factors of most previous studies on livelihood resilience are natural and ecological.In this paper,the risk scenario of livelihood resilience was extended from relatively sudden natural ecology to changes in social factors,and the construction mechanism of livelihood resilience under changes in the social environment was constructed.Second,previous studies on livelihood resilience rarely included the effects of ICT adoption.In this paper,ICT adoption is included in the relationship between farmers’individual capital and livelihood resilience.Third,most previous literature finds that ICT adoption exacerbates the digital divide between urban residents and rural residents.However,this study finds that in the face of risks,digital technology,as an external social construction,also brings about social integration,and ICT adoption essentially plays a role in the redistribution of resources and factors between urban and rural areas and between regions.An important policy implication of this study is that in terms of effectively connecting the achievements of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization,the path of individual capital-digital technology-sustainable development should be generally followed,which would improve farmers’livelihood resilience and endogenous sustainable development ability in the face of external risks.