The Study On Farmers’ Employment Effects Of Agricultural Land Titling

At the beginning of the household contract responsibility system,in order to realize the "land for the cultivator",under the guidance of the idea of equal distribution of land rights,farmers obtained the right to use agricultural land equally by virtue of their collective membership.However,this tradition of equalization of land rights has not only given rise to the subsequent adjustment of agricultural land at the village level,but also led to the increasing fragmentation of agricultural land in China,which is characterized by the high fragmentation of agricultural land use rights as a small farmer’s economy in contradiction to the general practice of modern agricultural scale operation,resulting in the loss of economies of scale in agricultural production.Faced with the conflict between "equity" and "efficiency" in China’s agricultural production,academics and government policy makers have pointed the key to solving the problem to the current arrangement of agricultural land ownership system.The theory of property rights reveals that clear property rights are a prerequisite for effective resource allocation,and therefore,the work of confirming and registering rural land contract management rights and issuing certificates(referred to as "farmland confirmation" in this study),which was piloted in 2009 and carried out on a large scale nationwide in2013,aims to promote the transfer of farmland management rights on the basis of clear property rights of farmland and to realize large-scale agricultural operation by cultivating new agricultural business entities;at the same time,the process of concentrating farmland management rights in the hands of a few people can further stimulate the non-farm transfer of rural labor.The theoretical support and the policy direction of large-scale agricultural operation have made the confirmation of agricultural land rights receive much attention and high expectations.However,in reality,agricultural land rights are facing a target dilemma,which is mainly manifested in the background of agricultural land rights,on the one hand,the pattern of small farmer economy in China has not changed fundamentally,and the family operation of farmers is still the main mode of agricultural production and operation;on the other hand,farmers generally have not given up the right to cultivate the land,and agricultural production relying on the land still plays an active role in solving farmers’ employment.Faced with the inconsistency between theory and reality,this study takes farmers’ employment as the research object and decomposes farmers’ employment into three aspects: agricultural employment,part-time employment and non-farm employment,in an attempt to reveal the real logic of farmers’ actions in the process of employment under the condition of agricultural land rights.First of all,with the theoretical reference and inspiration from Marxist economics land property rights theory and new institutional economics property rights theory,transaction cost theory,institutional change theory,etc.,through the conceptual analysis of land rights stability,the theoretical analysis framework of agricultural land rights and farmers’ agricultural employment,part-time employment and non-farm employment is integrated,and the theoretical boundaries between agricultural land rights and farmers’ agricultural employment,part-time employment and non-farm employment are clarified.Second,we theoretically investigate the mechanisms of agricultural land titling and farmers’ agricultural employment,part-time employment and non-farm employment based on the agricultural productivity enhancement effect,the "capital-labor" substitution effect and the labor transfer cost reduction effect,respectively.Third,the possible differences in the effects of farmland titling and farmers’ agricultural employment,part-time and non-farm employment in different farmland property rights practice settings are further examined at the theoretical level.Finally,the relationships,mechanisms of action,and differences in the effects of farmland titling and farmers’ agricultural employment,parttime employment,and non-farm employment are empirically tested using 2015 China Household Finance Survey(CHFS)microdata,2014-2016 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey(CLDS)microdata,and combined 2015 China Household Finance Survey(CHFS)microdata and 2015 China Statistical Yearbook macrodata,respectively.The theoretical and empirical analysis of this study led to the following main conclusions.(1)Agricultural land titling has a positive impact on farmers’ agricultural employment,part-time and non-farm employment,and in general,agricultural land titling increases farmers’ dependence on the land.With a series of changes from low to high level of legal protection of farmland property rights implied by farmland titling,and the income return of farmers exercising their legal rights to farmland within their capacity to engage in agricultural production is lower than,equal to or higher than the opportunity cost of agricultural production,there will be a labor transfer cost reduction effect,a "capital-labor" substitution effect and an agricultural productivity enhancement effect respectively,which form the theoretical boundaries of farmers’ non-farm employment,part-time employment and agricultural employment respectively.The empirical analysis also demonstrates the positive impact of farmland titling on farmers’ agricultural employment and part-time employment,but the positive impact of farmland titling on farmers’ non-farm employment is limited to formal employment as a form of employment,and the impact on farmers’ non-farm entrepreneurship is not significant,and it also reduces farmers’ choice of temporary employment.Considering that part-time employment essentially means that farmers do not give up their right to farm their agricultural land,agricultural land titling in general enhances farmers’ dependence on land.(2)Regarding the mechanisms of the role of agricultural land titling and farmers’ agricultural employment,part-time employment and non-farm employment,first,under the effect of agricultural productivity enhancement,agricultural land titling can induce farmers to choose agricultural employment through three mechanisms: agricultural investment,agricultural land inflow and agricultural cooperative operation.Second,under the effect of "capital-labor" substitution,agricultural land titling can promote farmers’ choice of part-time mode through two mechanisms: transformation of planting structure and outsourcing of agricultural machinery services.Third,under the effect of labor transfer cost reduction,farmland titling can induce farmers to choose non-farm employment through the farmland outflow mechanism,while the farmland mortgage mechanism and farmland abandonment mechanism are not supported by empirical evidence,which we find that,first,farmland titling fails to stimulate farmers’ demand for bank loans using farmland management rights;second,farmland titling in fact does not bring about the "endowment effect",rather,under the condition of farmland titling,those households who do not transfer farmland choose to cultivate their own farmland more.(3)The impact of farmland titling on farmers’ agricultural employment,part-time employment,and non-farm employment can vary significantly depending on the context in which farmland titling is practiced.First,for farmland titling and farmers’ agricultural employment,the increase in farmland size and farmland production value in the land output efficiency perspective,and the increase in farmers’ age,declining health status,and certain level of awareness of farmland rights in the farmers’ endowment characteristics perspective all enhance the promotion of farmland titling to farmers’ agricultural employment.Second,for farmland titling and farmers’ part-time employment,the effects of farmland titling on farmers’ part-time employment are reinforced by the decline in the number of household laborers in the household endowment characteristics perspective,the increase in the burden of raising the elderly and children,and household ownership of agricultural machinery,and the lower level of farmland transfer rents in the land income contribution perspective,the availability of agricultural subsidies for agricultural production,and the ownership of farmland utilities in villages.Finally,for farmland titling and farmers’ non-farm employment,farmers’ use of the Internet,higher educational attainment,and stronger social networks in the farmers’ comparative advantage perspective,and more developed regional economies,higher urbanization rates,and villages located in towns in the non-farm employment opportunity perspective all reinforce the positive effects of farmland titling on farmers’ non-farm employment.The policy implication of the study’s conclusion is that,first,the correct understanding and firm recognition of the realistic rationality and necessity of the status of smallholder farmers is the primary condition to ensure the realization of farmers’ legitimate rights and interests.Second,guiding and developing a modern smallholder economy and enhancing the comparative advantage and development vitality of the smallholder economy is the key to raising farmers’ income levels in the future.Third,in the exploration of the development path of agricultural modernization,it is necessary to promote the development of agricultural modernization in an integrated and localized manner,and to prevent the policy of "one-size-fits-all" to emphasize the replacement of the status of small farmers by new agricultural business entities.Fourth,on the basis of agricultural land titling,attention should also be paid to cultivating farmers’ awareness of agricultural land property rights,which is an important prerequisite for the effective realization of the performance of the agricultural land titling system.