The Formation Of Rural Laborers’ Modernity And Its Impact On The Growth Of Agricultural Economy

The issues of agriculture, peasants and rural area are the strategic basis of socialist modernization construction in the21st century. As a subject of modern agricultural production and sci-technological application, peasants are the main force of new socialist countryside construction. The achievement of the transition from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture and the construction of the new socialist countryside are all based on the peasants’ transition from tradition to modernity. To what extent the modernity level can be achieved depends on the modernity of peasants in their economic, political, cultural and social living.With the abolishment of systematic barrier to countryside development, the modernization process of countryside is the social transformation of peasants in essence. During the process, the transition from rural population to urban population is not the only issue, what is more important is to change the peasants’ culture, psychology and personality.The individual modernity refers to some basic qualities that an individual has to adapt to the modern society, such as cognitive attitude, ideological conception, value orientation, behavior pattern, etc..Since the adoption of the reform and opening policy, chinese peasants witnessing great changes in economic, social structure and social culture, which consequently leads to the enhancement in peasants’ modernity, the weakening of their traditional features, and transition from tradition to modernity in their personality and social psychology. The peasants’ modernity can only be formed after a long rational accumulation. Now that the phenomenon of "the pattern of difference sequence" exists in region, individual and modernity, etc., the transition from tradition to modernity has not completed yet.The lag of peasants’ modernity restricts the development of rural politics, economy, and society. Therefore, the focus on peasants’ modernity can not only help us explore peasants’ change in social psychology and their acquisition of modern personality, but also provide political references for rural practical work, thus improving the modernity of agriculture and rural areas, and contributing to resolve the "three dimensional rural issues" smoothly.Nowadays, the domestic study of modernity can be classified as follows:the meaning, the relationship between human modernity and social modernity, the formation, the measurement, the influencing factors, etc.. There are few studies on peasants’ modernity, most of which are concerned about establishing modernity scale to study the level of peasants’ modernity and the influencing factors. However, these studies have some deficiencies in choosing index, and the existing studies attach too much importance to qualitative analysis rather than the empirical analysis based on the collected data about education, mobility, mass media, urban experience and other factors which may have impact on the formation of modernity.Set in the aforementioned background, this dissertation intends to explore the modernity of rural laborers on the basis of the data collected in Jiangsu Province. Through theoretical and empirical analysis, This dissertation establishes the modernity scale to measure the status of rural laborers’ modernity, analyzes the main factors, conducts empirical tests to prove the use of modernity in improving peasants’income and agricultural efficiency, and offers relevant political suggestions in the end. The main points of research content and the result are as follows:Part1:Quantitative measurement on the modernity of rural laborersThe logical route is to set up a modernity scale which is suitable for Chinese rural laborers, then to estimates the modernity of rural laborers in Jiangsu province. The result shows that7factors such as communication ability, subjective consciousness, inherent quality, open-mindedness, public obligation, management ability, and survival ability are the most important in the measurement of individual modernity, and accumulative contributing ratio is up to48.018percent. Among them communication ability, subjective consciousness, inherent quality are the top3factors respectively.Part2:Modernity of rural laborers in different migration stages.The logical route is to measure the total value of the modernity of the rural laborers by factor analysis, and analyze the modernity level in different transferred status. The result shows that the rural laborers who are currently working away from their hometowns have higher modernization standards than those who used to work elsewhere for a period of time while the latter has higher modernization standards than those who have never migrated to cities for employment. The groups working outside show stronger communication ability, subjective consciousness and management ability. However, they are more cautious about work and life in the city, more indifferent to public issues, and less adapted to the pace of city life. So, they get low scores in the aspects of open-mindedness, public obligation, and survival ability. While the back-flow groups demonstrate good inherent quality, open-mindedness, communication ability, public obligation and survival ability, and the score is relatively stable. As to the groups who never worked out, the score is negative, with an advantage in their relatively high public responsibilities.Part3:Factors affecting the modernity of rural laborersThe author uses the Structural Equation Modeling to ascertain the relationship between human capital, personal characteristics, the migration of rural laborers and their impact on modernity. The result shows that migration, human capital and individual characteristics are important factors in the formation of rural laborers’ modernity. Urban experience plays an important role in building the rural laborers’ modernity. In addition, social capital does not have a significant correlation to modernity. The author believes that the main cause of this phenomenon is that the rural laborers have a lower social capital levelPart4:Impact of modernity on farmers’agricultural income and productivity.The major concern of this study is the sustainable growth of modern agriculture (not industry), and therefore, this part particularly analyses how the modernity affects the income of peasants and the production efficiency. The subjects in this part are the rural laborers who have never worked out and the laborers who have returned after working outside for a period of time (not the rural laborers who are still working outside, that is, migrant workers). The focus of the study is on the agricultural income and productivity change (not non-farm income and non-agricultural industries).The result show such factors as the area of per capita arable land, age, training, social capital, risk preferences and regional differences exert significant influence on farmers’ agricultural income while the comprehensiveness of modernity has little impact. The author believes that the main reason is that the effects of the seven factors of modernity on the agricultural income sometime is positive and sometime is negative, and they may offset each other. Among them, the effect of such factors as inherent quality, open-mindedness, public obligation is positive, while other factors such as communication ability, management ability, survival ability and so on have negative effect on peasants’ agricultural income.Then, the study further sets up DEA (Data Envelopment Analysis) to measure TFP (Total Factor Productivity) in agricultural production, and apply the Tobit model for empirical analysis of the contribution modernity makes to TFP. The conclusion indicates that age, health, vertical cooperation, business type and other factors make significant contribution to agricultural TFP. The same is true of the inherent quality and open-mindedness of modernity.To conclude, the modernity of China’s rural laborers is never to be underestimated in terms of its contribution to the promotion of farmers’ income and agricultural productivity. The enhancement of modernity of the rural laborers therefore will play a crucial role in the solutions to the problems concerning agriculture, peasant and rural area and the promotion of the new socialist countryside campaign. It is important for us to vigorously stimulate the transfer of rural laborers to non-agricultural sectors, promote the rural educational standards, etc, to help nurture farmers’ modernity. At the same time,we should encourage those who have high level of modernity to start up business endeavors in their hometown, and ultimately realizing the modernization in rural areas.