Farmer’s Professional Differentiation In Modernization Process

Transfer of rural labor from agriculture to non-agricultural industries and transferfrom rural residents from rural areas to towns, are the inevitable requirement for a countryto achieve modernization. Since the reform and opening up, China has entered a period ofunprecedented economic and social transformation. Professional structure of farmers hasundergone significant changes. Not only had an increasing number of farmers engaged innon-agricultural work, but also their occupations scope are more widely in rural and urban,which means place of employment and live also undergone a major change (movements ofmigrant workers). Especially in recent years, with the in-depth development of theindustrialization, urbanization and synchro promotion of agricultural modernization,Professional differentiation of farmers also showed a accelerated deep trend the maincharacteristic of which is the higher of specialization degree and the more obvious ofprofessional characteristics. However, due to the limit of various factors at institutionallevel and non-institutional level, the problems such as halfway differentiation, inaccuratetransfer, precarious living conditions, etc, are still outstanding, which become theoutstanding problems affecting the process and level of modernization in China. Whatfactors exactly promote or restrict farmers’ Professional differentiation? Why do somefarmers choose thoroughly differentiation, some farmers choose multiple occupations, andsome in agriculture? Why do some farmers engage in non-agricultural occupations in ruralareas, while some farmers choose the differentiation into town? What impacts do thesechoices of Farmers to the process of modernization? In-depth study of these issues, andfeasible proposals to promote farmers’ Professional differentiation based on these reliableresearch conclusions have important significance in promoting the realization ofmodernization as well as the solution to the problem of the "three rural issues".In order to answer the above questions, this thesis takes the problem of farmeroccupation differentiation as the theme, depending on the line of modernization processwhich is including industrialization, urbanization and agricultural modernization, using theindividual behavior motivation of organizational behavior theory as the research context,comprehensively using the related theory of economics and sociology, various statisticaldata, field survey of1518farmers in three villages of the questionnaire and interview data,to analyze the farmer occupation differentiation issue. The research process take the way of point to surface, based on related theories, the overall analysis supported by the statisticaldata, analysis of the survey data of Hebei Province as the microscopic quantitative basisand analysis of a household survey as a case.In accordance with the theory of organizational behavior motivation, individualbehavior is generated under the combined action of the environment, motivation and ability.After behavior, it will bring some performance to get a certain amount of remuneration,which will strengthen the behavior to some extent. According to this theory, based on thedefinition of related concepts, through analyzing the current situation of the nationalfarmer occupation differentiation, this thesis firstly analyzed institutional environment andnon-institutional environment of occupational differentiation, identified the relationship offarmers’ occupational differentiation and the process of modernization, then combiningwith survey data, analyzed self-motivation and the ability of farmers’ occupationaldifferentiation at micro level, and on this basis established model to analyzedecision-making and influencing factors of farmers’ occupational differentiation. Finally,the thesis analyzed results and benefits of occupational differentiation behavior, obtainedconclusions and gave suggestions. The concrete research contents are as follows:The thesis overall grasp the differentiation status and characteristics of the farmers’professional from their professional degree of differentiation, scope, region and mode etc.on the basis of accessing to large amounts of literature and statistical data. The thesis foundthe main problems and difficulties in the development of farmers’ professionaldifferentiation, and found the main limitation in the farmer’s differentiation process fromthe macro level.The thesis studied the environmental factors which affect farmers’ occupationaldifferentiation behavior. Firstly, the thesis analyzed the major institutional factors thataffect farmers’ professional differentiation, mainly including the household registrationsystem, land system, medical and pension system, labor market institutions etc. Since thereform and opening up, the reform of the state on these systems has made a significantprogress. That the pull from the labor market and the thrust of the land transfer and thesecurity system played a certain role in promoting farmers’ professional differentiation. Butrelatively speaking, the current system of restrictions on farmers’ Professionaldifferentiation becomes more apparent. Then, from the theoretical and empirical point ofview, the thesis studied the relationship between farmers’ occupational differentiation andmodernization process analysis, and obtained the conclusions. Industrial development hasspurred the development of farmers’ professional differentiation, and the professionaldifferentiation provides the necessary human capital for industrialization. The urbanizationis reciprocal causation and mutual promotion with farmer’s professional differentiation.Farmers’ professional differentiation is a necessary condition to achieve agriculturalmodernization and is promoted by agricultural modernization. Farmers’ professional differentiation directly promotes the process of modernization. This thesis confirms thatfarmers professional differentiation is the necessary conditions and direct power topromote and accelerate the process of modernization from the point of view of ruraleducation, rural population growth, willingness and behavior of agricultural operations,farmers’ expectations of work life and rural construction etc..In the analysis of individual motivation and ability of farmer’s professionaldifferentiation, using the survey data of the farmers within the scope of11cities of Hebeiprovince, this thesis studied the differences in selectivity of farmers’ individuals and triedto find the motivation and ability differences of farmers’ occupation differentiation. Thestudy was conducted in two aspects; one is divided into professional, full-time andpart-time farming-the three types, which are based on the thorough farmer occupationdifferentiation. Another is divided into in the city of office, in the small town of office andoffice three classes in rural areas which is based on farmer occupation divisive in urbanand rural areas and regional difference. From the above two points of view, from the aspectof personal characteristics and family characteristics, this thesis compare the differentcategories of farmers. The results showed that there were significant differences indifferent categories of farmers in the differentiation of individual factors.On the basis of the above studies, using research data, from individual farmers’decision-making point of view, this thesis established related models to conduct anempirical analysis of the behavior of the farmers’ occupational differentiation. Thequantitative analysis of the results showed that farmers’ professional differentiation is acomplex social phenomenon that affected by a variety of factors together. In terms offarmers’ professional differentiation degree, differentiate career choice model is establishedusing multivariate sorting selection model. The conclusion is that from the farmers andtheir families, a higher level of education, age less than40years old, unmarried status,male gender, a relatively small number of arable lands can help to differentiate career.Viewing from its geographical location, in where information is more opening up,economic development degree is higher and its area businesses is higher, professionaldifferentiation would be strongly promoted. In terms of farmers’ professionaldifferentiation area selection, farmers’ professional differentiation region selection model isestablished using Probit model. The resulted showed that higher age, female gender, lowerculture and skill levels will hinder the footsteps of farmers into differentiation. In terms offamily, the more the number of the elderly and children needing care, the more difficultiesfor the farmers to go out. The more open and developed the area that family located is, therelatively less the number of enterprises in the village, it will assist to farmers’differentiation.In accordance with the differences of differentiation degree and differentiation area,from the aspects of inaugural industry and life satisfaction, this thesis analyzed aftermaths of farmers’ occupational differentiation behavior. On this basis, human capital investmentrate of return for farmers’ occupational differentiation was further estimated.The results showed that human capital investment rate of return is lowest wheninvesting in farming. Capital investment rate of return for full-time non-farming is higher,and that of part-time work is highest, which imply that the existence of part-time work isreasonable. At the same time, with the rise of the content of human capital, specializationwill help to improve human capital investment rate of return of the farmers’ occupationaldifferentiation.Based on a comprehensive analysis of farmers’ occupational differentiation, it is foundthat farmers’ occupational differentiation is an inevitable trend of history and objectivephenomenon, which should be promoted and standardized step by step under theprecondition of respecting the rule of its development and farmer’s willingness.According to above conclusions, in this thesis the relevant policy recommendationshave been put forward, including deepening the system reform, strengthening humanresource cultivation in rural areas, vigorously developing secondary and tertiary industries,and continually actualizing the strategy of urbanization and cultivating new professionalfarmers etc.Possible innovations are as follows:(1)Using the motivation theory model to analyzethe issue of farmer occupational differentiation, and systematicly researching andexplaining the farmers’ occupational differentiation behavior;(2)In the part of farmeroccupational differentiation environment analysis, combined with the modernizationprocess, using economics and society theories, international experience, statistics data andmethods, from qualitative and quantitative aspects analyzed the relationship betweenfarmer occupational differentiation and the process of modernization;(3)using large samplesurvey data, taking the Ordered Probit Model and Probit Model to analyze the farmers’occupational differentiation category selection and regional selection;(4)applying thehuman capital investment theory and related model of development economics into theanalysis of performance and reward of farmer professional differientiation. By calculatingfarmers’individual returns ratio of different occupation differentiation category, infer theeconomic benefit of farmer professional differentiation.The follow issues need in-depth study:(1)continue to expand the research sample area,especially to focus on the eastern and western special region;(2)from the multi-disciplinaryperspective, taking psychological factors, concept factors, children at school and otherfactors into a comprehensive model;(3)taking the occupation flow of farmer professionaldifferentiation into account.