Research On The Impact Of Internet Embedding On Farmers’ Livelihood Choice And Incomes

The rapid popularization and development of the Internet is changing the forms of the traditional rural social economy and the production and lifestyle of farmers.The farmers is the smallest living unit of social economy development in rural areas,which also the main economic activity subjects so that farmers play a crucial role in the “Internet + Agriculture” system.Internet has the characteristics of diffusion effect of innovation,spillover effect of information and knowledge,and universal effect of digital technology release,which can directly impact the livelihood activities of farmers.With the development of agricultural economy,the livelihood of farmers has been concerned by the government.Based on the sustainable livelihoods theory,the livelihood capital,livelihood choice and livelihood output(income)are the focus of the research on the livelihood of farmers.The diversification of farmers’ livelihood choices and the increase of farmers’ income channels are the key to improve farmers’ quality of life,realize the transfer of rural labor force,promote large-scale agricultural production and effectively realize the rural revitalization strategy.Therefore,under the background of developing “Internet + agriculture” and rural digital strategy,this study reveals action mechanism and influence path of Internet embedding on livelihood choice and farmers’ income,to explore the livelihood capital in the role of the impact path,guide farmers to use the Internet to scientifically employment entrepreneurship realization of farmers’ income,to solve the problem of agriculture,rural areas and farmers in rural areas and the implementation of the China national digital rural pilot work to provide a reference for policy.On the basis of the existing literature,this study is based on the sustainable livelihood theory,information gap theory,new economics of migration and occupation optimal search theory,that uses data from 6887 farmers in the 2018 China Family Panel Studies(CFPS),empirically analyzes the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ livelihood choices and income,and discuss the mediating role of livelihood capital,and puts forward relevant policy suggestions.The main research contents and relevant conclusions are as follows:This part is the theoretical analysis.Firstly,this part uses the information gap theory to analyze the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ livelihood capital.Secondly,this part uses the new economics of migration and the sustainable livelihood theory to analyze the direct and indirect impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ livelihood choice.Thirdly,this part analyzes farmers’ income effect that based on the optimal search theory and sustainable livelihood theory.Finally,this part constructs the theoretical framework.The results show that Internet embedding has a promoting effect on the livelihood capital stock of farmers.Internet embedding has the direct impact on farmers’ livelihood choice and income.The livelihood capital has the mediating effect.This part mainly analyzes the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ livelihood capital.Firstly,this part uses extremum entropy method to measure livelihood capital that based on the sustainable livelihood theory.Among them,human capital index > financial capital > social capital > material capital > natural capital index.Secondly,this part uses OLS and SUR to analyze the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ livelihood capital.Thirdly,this part uses 2SLS and the method of ensuring the temporal antecedents between variables to solve the endogenous problem.Finally,this part uses three methods to make robustness test.The results show that Internet embedding can improve stock of farmers’ livelihood capital.Among them,Internet embedding time has an inverted u-shaped relationship with the farmers’ livelihood capital.When the time is less than 4.785h/day,Internet embedding time can improve the stock of farmers’ livelihood capital.Internet embedding has a significant positive impact on famers’ human capital,financial capital,social capital and physical capital,which has a significant negative impact on natural capital.This part mainly analyzes the impact of Internet embedding on livelihood choice.Firstly,the livelihood choice is divided into three categories by multi-index division method and two-step cluster analysis,include farming oriented livelihood strategy,working oriented livelihood strategy and entrepreneurial oriented livelihood strategy.Secondly,this part uses M-Logit model to analyze the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ livelihood choice.Thirdly,this part uses 2SLS and the method of ensuring the temporal antecedents between variables to solve the endogenous problem.Fourthly,this part uses three methods to make robustness test.Finally,this part uses Bootstrap mediation test method and standardized coefficient product method to examine the mediating role of livelihood capital.The results show that Internet use,Internet embedding frequency and purpose can promote farmers to choose working oriented and entrepreneurial oriented livelihood strategy.Compared with working oriented livelihood strategy,Internet use,Internet embedding frequency and purpose promote farmers to choose entrepreneurial oriented livelihood strategy.Among them,Internet social entertainment frequency and Internet social entertainment purposes have a greater impact.Internet embedding time has a significant inverted u-shaped relationship with working oriented and entrepreneurial oriented livelihood strategy,farmers are more likely to choose working oriented and entrepreneurial oriented livelihood strategy when the time is less than 3.5h/day.Compared with working oriented livelihood strategy,Internet embedding time promotes farmers to choose entrepreneurial livelihood strategy.Livelihood capital has mediating role in the influence of Internet embedding on working oriented and entrepreneurial oriented livelihood strategy.Among them,human capital,social capital,financial capital,physical capital and natural capital both have mediating role.This part mainly analyzes the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ income.Firstly,this part uses PSM to analyze the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ total income and farmers’ income under different livelihood choice.And then this part uses OLS to analyze the impact of Internet embedding frequency,time and purpose on farmers’ income.Secondly,this part uses 2SLS and the method of ensuring the temporal antecedents between variables to solve the endogenous problem.Thirdly,this part uses three methods to make robustness test.Finally,this part uses Bootstrap mediation test method to examine the mediating role of livelihood capital.The results show that Internet use significantly increase farmers’ income.Internet embedding frequency significantly increase farmers’ income.Among them,the frequency of Internet work and study has a greater impact on farmers’ entrepreneurial income,and frequency of Internet social entertainment has a greater impact on farmers’ farming income.Internet embedding time has a significant inverted u-shaped relationship with farmers’ income.Compared particular value to the average value,it finds that Internet embedding time significantly promote farmers’ income to improve.Internet embedding purpose significantly increase farmers’ income.Among them,the purpose of Internet work and study has a greater impact on farmers’ working income and entrepreneurial income,and the purpose of Internet social entertainment has a greater impact on farming income and entrepreneurial income.Livelihood capital has mediating role in the influence of Internet embedding on farmers’ income.Among them,human capital,social capital and physical capital both play the mediating role in the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ income.Financial capital plays the mediating role in the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ total income,farming income and entrepreneurial income.Natural capital plays the mediating role in the impact of farmers’ total income,farming income and working income.Based on the above analysis,the following policy recommendations are put forward:Firstly,the government should make full use of the connectivity of Internet embedding,strengthen the degree of farmers’ Internet embedding so that make farmers link the information,link the family and link the wealth efficiently,and provide security for the capital stock of farmers’ livelihood.Secondly,the government should guide farmers to make rational use of Internet and give full play to the important role of Internet embedding in optimizing farmers’ livelihood choice and promoting farmers’ income.Thirdly,the government should attach importance to the mediating role of livelihood capital in the impact of Internet embedding on the livelihood choice and farmers’ income.The Internet technicians,rural cadres and capable farmers can guide farmers to understand and use the Internet through the leading role of the guidance and demonstration,which can improve farmers’ livelihood capital to help farmers choose livelihood strategy and increase farmers’ income.Fourthly,the government should strengthen the construction of Internet infrastructure and attach importance to the quality of network construction in rural areas.Fifthly,the government should improve the Internet information service system and introduce financial subsidies for Internet technology so that helpful to improve the degree of farmers’ Internet embedding.All in all,only when farmers effectively embed the Internet into their production and life,the government can effectively carry out the digital rural pilot work and implement the digital rural strategy.Possible innovations of this paper are as follows:Firstly,from the perspective of Internet embedding,there are few researches on farmers’ livelihood choice and income effect,that lack of depth of researches.There is even less literature on the role of livelihood capital in the impact of Internet on the livelihood choice and farmers’ income.In the context of the digital rural strategy,Internet is embedded in the life and production of farmers that have an impact on farmers’ economic activities.Based on this,this paper makes an in-depth study of the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ livelihood choice and income,and reveal the mediating role of livelihood capital.This paper expands the perspective of the study on the livelihood choice and farmers’ income,which is an effective supplement to the existing literature.Secondly,this paper focuses on the impact of Internet embedding on farmers’ livelihood choice and income,and mediating role of livelihood capital.This paper uses the sustainable livelihood theory,information gap theory,and the new economics of migration and occupation optimal search theory in the research framework.Internet embedding selected in this paper not only includes Internet use,but also considers the impact of Internet embedding frequency,time and purpose on farmers’ livelihood.Based on the sustainable livelihood theory,this paper measures the farmers’ livelihood capital from human capital,financial capital,social capital,physical capital and natural capital.And then,this paper uses the multi-index division method and two-step cluster analysis to divide livelihood choice.This paper uses M-Logit model,PSM,Bootstrap mediation test method and standardized coefficient product method to make the empirical analysis.Thirdly,the existing literature only use instrumental variables to deal with the possible endogenous problem in the impact of Internet on farmers’ livelihood.In fact,due to the problem of the weak instrumental variable and the local average treatment effect so that the estimation parameter is too large.Therefore,this paper use the method of ensuring the temporal antecedents between variables to solve the endogenous problem after uses instrumental variable method.