The Impact Of An Aging Agricultural Workforce On Agricultural Output

Agricultural production is an inevitable need to realize agricultural and rural modernization,and a stable agricultural production environment is a prerequisite for ensuring the normal operation of the national economy.Population aging is a demographic development trend commonly faced by human society worldwide,and the emergence of a large-scale young and middle-aged labor force from rural to urban areas in China has become increasingly prominent.With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization,the rural young and middle-aged labor force has shifted to the towns,and the middle-aged and elderly groups have gradually become the main body of agricultural production."Small farmers in big countries" is still China’s basic national condition,and whether it can rely on aging small farmers to ensure national food security needs further exploration.Therefore,this paper deeply explores the impact of agricultural labor aging on agricultural output through theoretical analysis and empirical research,and provides a theoretical basis and reference for China’s early realization of agricultural modernization.Taking the aging of agricultural labor force and agricultural output in China as the research object,this paper first summarizes the connotation and related theoretical basis of agricultural population migration,agricultural labor aging and agricultural output,and theoretically discusses the impact of agricultural labor aging on agricultural output.Secondly,the aging of agricultural labor force and the development status of agricultural output are analyzed from the current status,causes,characteristics and trends of agricultural labor aging,and the current situation of agricultural output.Thirdly,based on the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2003 to 2020,a two-way fixed-effect model was constructed by reference to the C-D production function,and the impact of China’s agricultural labor aging and agricultural output was explored and studied from both theoretical and empirical aspects.On this basis,the mediation effect test is carried out by taking agricultural labor transfer as an intermediary variable,and a theoretical framework is constructed to analyze the relationship between labor aging,agricultural labor transfer and agricultural output,and the role of agricultural labor transfer in the process of agricultural labor aging on agricultural output growth is deeply studied.The heterogeneity analysis was carried out,and the empirical analysis was carried out from the perspectives of major grain-producing areas and non-major grain-producing areas,and the regional heterogeneity of the impact of agricultural labor aging on agricultural output was studied.Finally,the stability of the model is tested by replacing the core explanatory variables to ensure the reliability of the research conclusions.The results show that:(1)The aging of China’s agricultural labor force significantly reduces the level of agricultural output.(2)Agricultural labor transfer plays a part-mediating role in the process of aging agricultural labor and inhibiting the growth of agricultural output.(3)The aging of agricultural labor in non-grain-producing areas significantly reduced the level of agricultural output,while the aging of agricultural labor in major grain-producing areas had no impact on the level of agricultural output.On the one hand,the deepening of the aging of the rural population has led to a decrease in labor supply and the aging of agricultural labor,thereby reducing agricultural productivity and negatively affecting agricultural production.On the other hand,the aging of agricultural labor indirectly leads to the improvement of large-scale agricultural production,mechanized operation and agricultural science and technology application level,thereby weakening the dependence of agricultural production on labor,and then indirectly promoting the transformation of agricultural production mode and accelerating the process of agricultural modernization.In empirical research,reducing the dependence of agricultural production on labor by virtue of the advantages of geographical location,economic development,and priority application of science and technology can alleviate some of the negative impact of the elderly population.Based on the above research conclusions,this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions to actively cope with the aging of agricultural labor,vigorously develop moderate-scale operations,strengthen rural infrastructure construction,improve the level of modern agricultural equipment,strengthen agricultural science and technology research and development and technology promotion,and promote the integrated development of the three major industries.