Off-farm income promotes energy transition in the Pan-Third Pole cross-national region

The Pan-Third Pole region comprises multiple nations affected by climate vulnerability and energy inequality,wherein promoting energy transitions in rural households would provide a path to combat climate change.Identifying the factors that drive rural household energy consumption and the transition is important.This study performed a micro-survey of 1060 rural households in five countries in the Pan-Third Pole region and empirically analyzed the relationships between off-farm income,energy consumption,and energy transitions.The off-farm income of rural households was found to have a significantly positive effect(p<0.01)on energy expenditure,indicating that energy expenditure increased with increasing off-farm income.Off-farm income has a significantly positive effect(p<0.01)on the proportion of commercial energy but a significantly negative effect on the proportion of noncommercial energy.These results indicate that increasing off-farm income can adjust the energy consumption structure of rural households.Furthermore,a robustness check by substituting independent variables,instrumental variable method(IV),and propensity score matching method(PSM)provided strong evidence to prove the robustness of the results.The heterogeneity analysis showed that the effects of off-farm income on energy expenditure and transitions differed among countries,off-farm income had no significant impact on energy expenditure in Cambodia and Myanmar,but it worked for China,Nepal,and Thailand.Finally,policy implications are proposed to promote energy transition in the Pan-Third pole region:providing more full-time or part-time off-farm employment opportunities,employment assistance or skill training by local governments;increasing the pace of infrastructure construction to solve energy inaccessibility;multiple measures to promote the education and environmental knowledge.

The Impacts of Income from Non-agricultural Industries Operated by Rural households on Farmers' Income

Income from non-agricultural industries operated by rural households is an important income source of farmers' income. According to the Regional Rural Residents' Net Income Per Capita in 2004 issued by the State Statistics Bureau and the relevant statistics of national comprehensive investigation(CGSS2005) in 2005, the impacts of farmers' income gap and farmers' individual features on their income and the impacts of income from non-agricultural industries operated by rural households on farmers' individual income differences are analyzed by applying Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) as an analysis tool to establish the null model of HLM, excluding the second level model of the second level prediction variables and including the second level model of the second layer prediction variables. The analysis assumes that farmers' individual income varies hugely in different provinces; farmers' individual income has close relation with farmers' individual features; the improvement of income from non-agricultural industries operated by rural households has different impacts on farmers' income.

Off-farm employment,agriculture production activities,and household dietary diversity in environmentally and economically vulnerable areas of Asia

Access to off-farm employment has been expected to be a critical approach to ending hunger and all forms of malnutrition,two important targets of achieving Zero Hunger.This study aims to investigate the role of off-farm employment in improving dietary diversity through substitution effect and complementary effect with agricultural production activities and income effect.This study adopts Poisson/Tobit/Probit/OLS regressions and the instrument variable method based on the primary survey data collected among 1,282 households at 12 sites in environmentally and economically vulnerable areas of China,Nepal,Cambodia,Thailand,and Myanmar in 2019.The results show that off-farm employment is positively associated with household dietary diversity and the consumption of flesh meat,fish and other aquatic animals,fruits,and milk and dairy products,which are rich in protein and micronutrients.The results of mechanism analysis show that off-farm employment contributes to household dietary diversity by improving crop diversity,especially for poor households,boosting the probability of livestock raising for households with the middle one-third disposal income,and increasing household income.The positive association between off-farm employment and household dietary diversity is much higher for households with the bottom one-third disposal income,low illiteracy,and from upper-middle income countries.These findings imply that off-farm employment does play a vital role in achieving multiple benefits of poverty alleviation,malnutrition reduction,and agrobiodiversity conservation in environmentally and economically vulnerable areas.However,it may enlarge the gaps in dietary diversity between households with low human capital and from low and lower-middle income countries and those with high human capital and from middle-high countries.

Transcending Hukou Barriers Effectively Unleashes the Income-Raising Effect of Education:Based on an “Agricultural to Non-agricultural Hukou Conversion” Perspective

The relatively low rate of return to education has played an important role in explaining the urban-rural income disparity.However,rural residents have a high demand for education,and one significant reason is that education can help them break the restrictions of the household registration(hukou)system and obtain a higher income.Using data from the 2017 China Household Finance Survey(CHFS 2017),this study employs unconditional quantile regression to find that after reclassifying individuals who have experienced agricultural to non-agricultural hukou conversion back to the rural household registration category,the income-promotion effect on the rural population of completing high school and university education is significantly enhanced.The decomposition analysis using the recentered influence function(RIF)reveals that when considering the agricultural to non-agricultural hukou conversion group,the income disparity between urban and rural areas caused by education is noticeably alleviated.Furthermore,the endogenous switching regression model finds that individuals with agricultural hukou are generally less likely to work in formal institutions.Improving educational attainment helps increase the probability of their obtaining non-agricultural hukou and entering formal employment,resulting in higher income.Hence,policymakers should focus on improving the quality of rural education and reforming the household registration system to gradually eliminate the occupational segregation and income disparity caused by hukou barriers.

ANALYSIS ON POVERTY IN MOUNTAIN AREAS BASED ON OFF-FARM INDUSTRIES

This paper reveals that agricultural growth trend in China is strongly correlated with the growth of off-farm industries-the curve of net income from off-farm industries reflects the general characteristics of net income of households. That means the increase of net income of farm households is chiefly from off-farm industries,more than from agriculture. The authors therefore conclude that the "poverty" in mountain areas or the gap between mountain areas and plain areas lies in the underdevelopment of off-farm industries in mountain areas. Finally,the authors make suggestions of strategic adjustment of economic structure: 1) present situation of mountain areas in China should be fully considered; 2) a full industrial system is not our desire; 3) advantageous industries should be promoted to create famous products; 4) industrialization and urbanization in mountain areas should be promoted and so on.

Self-employment in Rural China:Its Development,Characteristics,and Relation to Income

Changes in the employment structure in rural China were studied with a focus on off-farm self-employment.Data from the Chinese Household Income Project surveys were used,covering the same 14 provinces from 1988 to 2018.We found that the proportion of adults in rural China with self-employment as their primary form of off-farm employment increased from only 2 percent in 1988 to 11 percent in 2013,with no further increases through 2018.In 1988 and 1995,the rate of self-employment was highest in the eastern region but this regional pattern subsequently disappeared.The probability of being self-employed in rural China was higher among married males than among unmarried persons.Having a migration experience increased the likelihood of being self-employed.Since 1995,self-employed households have had a higher average income than other categories of household.Based on estimates of income functions,we conclude that the income premium from being self-employed increased rapidly from 1988 to 1995 to become remarkably large when only a few adults were self-employed.However,as a larger fraction of the rural population entered self-employment,the payoff from being self-employed has rapidly diminished,although it was still substantial in 2018.