Impact Of Rural Households’ Off-farming Employment On Willingness Of Forestland Transfer Out

Forestry is an important basic industry in China’s economic development,and vigorously promoting the transfer of forestland plays an important role in optimizing the allocation of forestry resources,promoting the development of modern forestry and increasing farmers’income.However,the premise of promoting rural households’forestland transfer is that rural households have the willingness of forestland transfer out.With the rise of non-agricultural industries,a large number of farmers leave the countryside to non-agricultural industries and cities,and their dependence on the employment and security functions of forestland will change.it will affect the rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out.Therefore,it is practical significance to study the impact of off-farming employment of labor force on rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out.Based on the survey data of 374 rural households in 6 counties(cities and districts)of Zhejiang Province in 2016 to analyze the impact of off-farming employmentonruralhouseholds’willingnessofforestlandtransfer out.Firstly,descriptive statistical analysis was conducted on the situation of off-farming employment and rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out.The situation of off-farming employment includes three dimensions:the level of off-farming employment,the stability of off-farming employment and the distance of off-farming employment.Then,this paper analyzed the influence mechanism of off-farming employment on rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out,and put forward relevant research hypotheses.Finally,the cross statistical analysis was conducted between the situation of off-farming employment and rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out.And this paper analyzed the impact of off-farming employment on rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out and forestland transfer out scale with binary Logistic and Tobit regressive model.The result showed that:(1)On the whole,the mean value of the proportion of off-farming employment time in the sample area is 65.67%,and the off-farming employment time of rural households has exceeded the farming time.From the stability of off-farming employment of rural households,the mean value of the average years of off-farming employment is 10.76 years,and the mean value of the proportion of fixed wage earners is 30.15%.From the distance of off-farming employment of rural households,and the mean value of the average distance between off-farming employment and the family is 56.47km.(2)On the whole,rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out is not strong in the sample area and the scale of rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out is small.The proportion of rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out is not high,accounting for only 30.48%of the sample households.The average scale of rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out is 1.37hm~2,mainly distributed in 0~0.67hm~2.In addition,the main reason of rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out is lack of labor force,and most of them prefer a longer period of forestland transfer out.When rural households transfer out forestland,they mainly give priority to the transfer to their villagers,and most of them hope that the object of transfer out forestland is acquaintance with them.Rural households tend to choose to transfer forestland through village collectives and village groups.(3)Rural households’off-farming employment will promote rural households’willingness to transfer out forestland,and increase the scale of forestland transfer out.The proportion of off-farming employment time,the average years of off-farming employment,and the average distance between off-farming employment and the family have a significant positive impact on rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out and the scale of forestland transfer out.Meanwhile,the proportion of fixed wage earners as the stability index of off-farming employment for robustness test.The results show that the proportion of fixed wage earners have a significant positive impact on rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out and the scale of forestland transfer out.In addition,among the control variables,the proportion of pension insurance participation,whether the forestland has transferred out in the past,and the regional dummy variables have a significant positive impact on rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out and the scale of forestland transfer out.Family members’participation in non-agricultural skills training has a significant positive impact on rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out.The number of forestland plots has a significant positive impact on rural households’willingness of scale of forestland transfer out.The years of education of the head of the rural households,the number of the rural households’laborer and the proportion of timber forest and economic forest area all have a significant negative impact on rural households’willingness of forestland transfer out and the scale of forestland transfer out.Based on the above research results,it is proposed that different training plans for quality eduction of employment should be formulated according to different cultural levels of farmers in order to improve their comprehensive employment quality.And the goverment should encourage farmers to participate in off-farming employment,and enhance the stability of off-farming employment.The goverment should establish a social old-age security system suitable for migrant workers,and raise the level of the rural households’self-security.