A Study On The Impact Of Family Structure On Rural Households' Input In Farmland

Input is an important engine of agricultural growth. To ensure rapid and steady growth of agriculture, it is necessary to conduct the study on farm households' agricultural production input behavior. Farm farm households are the subject of agricultural production input. But different households have different family structure characteristics. So based on the micro perspective of households, this paper aims to reveal the impact of family structure characteristics on agricultural production input and try to found the law. It may provide some suggestion for the state and local governments to establish related policies.After reading the related academic works of scholars from home and abroad, this research selects Jianghan plain and eastern Hubei hilly as the study area, according to different economic and natural conditions. Through in-depth visits to the farm household, we have collected a large number of information of household family characteristics, natural resources and their agricultural production input. Based on the data collected, an analysis of the impact of family structure on farm households production input is conducted, using multiple linear regression and comparative analysis as the analysis method. And some results are revealed as follows:(1) The farm households input a larger labor on the land because of the low degree of agricultural mechanization. But the human capital investment on the land shows a trend of diminishing with the development of rural economy. The farm households input less labor for grain corps, but more labor for cash crops, because that the labor input on cash crops can be less substituted by the machinery. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides have a large proportion in the capital investment. If the planting area keeps constant, capital investment will have little change, and the capital investment will change with the price increase or decrease. Compared with capital investment, the farmer households have a relatively small investment in fixed capital. Lease is the main mode of mechanical input. The grain crops'fixed capital input is relatively more than cash crops. The fixed capital input of plain is relatively more than the hill country.(2) Different factors about family structure have different impact on farm households'farmland input. Household's family size has the negative effecton farm households'farmland input, but it is not significant. Consumer population structure, labor structure, farmers'age and cultural level have the positive effect on farm households' agricultural input. And, these three factors, population structure, labor structure, and farmers'age, have significant effects. In addition, household per capita arable land area, household income and agricultural prices have the positive effect on farm households' farmland input, but family living expenses and the prices of agricultural means of production have the negative effect.(3) Factors that impact the farm households'farmland input will have different relationships and significance in different regions. The factors'working direction and extent differ in the different area. Owing to the variance of natural conditions, land quality (it includes the size of a single block of land, the difficulty of land irrigated, land terrain conditions, etc.) will be different, as well as agricultural cropping systems and input-output ratio, in different regions. The farm households'preferences of agricultural production will also be different. Therefore, the agricultural inputs will be different when the farm households confront with a number of factors.