Study On The Impact Of Non-farm Employment On The Subjective Well-being Of Rural Residents

Humans all share the desire to be happy,and the primary goal of economic and social growth is to raise people’s standard of living.How to improve people’s happiness while considering economic development and people’s well-being has always been an important research topic.Nowadays,one of China’s primary development objectives is to promote shared prosperity through modernization in the Chinese way.Employment is the most basic livelihood.Against the backdrop of implementing the employment-first strategy comprehensively,the non-farm transfer of rural residents has become a normal state.In order to obtain better economic conditions and better prospects,a large number of rural residents choose to participate in non-farm employment." Agriculture,rural areas,and farmers " has always been the government’s top priorities in boosting high-quality economic development,and promoting national well-being includes,among other things,improving the well-being of rural residents.As a result,we must carry out extensive study on the effect of non-farm employment on the well-being of rural residents.This paper explored the well-being boost effect of non-farm employment on rural individuals empirically as well as the mechanism of the "well-being effect" with the microscopic data of 9220 valid samples from the China Family Panel Surveys in 2018.First and foremost,this paper summarized the relevant literature from both domestic and international sources.Secondly,the internal relationship between non-farm employment and rural inhabitants’ well-being was analyzed and the main point of this paper was put forward based on the theory of rational choice,the theory of relative deprivation,as well as the hypothesis about relative income and the theory about hierarchy of needs.In a further step,a two-stage instrumental variable model was developed to empirically explore the overall characteristics of the well-being effect on rural inhabitants.Furthermore,the heterogeneity characteristics of the well-being effect of non-farm employment were analyzed from different perspectives such as different geographic regions,different human capital endowments,different income levels,and different work locations.Then the robustness and credibility of conclusions were demonstrated with several measures in different aspects.Finally,based on the multi-mediation model,the mechanism of the "well-being effect" of non-farm employment was explored,and further verification was carried out using the Bootstrap and KHB methods.This paper concludes that:(i)In general,non-farm employment can significantly improve rural residents’ subjective well-being after overcoming potential endogenous errors.It is also estimated that the marginal effect of non-farm employment on the improvement of rural residents’ well-being is about 0.734,and that participation in non-farm employment can improve rural residents’ expected well-being by 10.77%.It still remains robust that non-farm employment can obviously improve the well-being of rural residents after replacing empirical models and main variables.(ii)In terms of heterogeneity,the well-being boost of non-farm employment on rural inhabitants was only observed in the western regions and non-grain-producing areas.At the same time,the well-being boost from non-farm employment tends to wane while the income is going to rise.The groups of rural inhabitants who earn a living within the county were the only ones to experience the boost of well-being brought about by non-farm work.(iii)In terms of the mechanism,the multi-mediation model verifies that both subjective economic status and relative deprivation are the important mechanisms of the well-being boost effect on rural inhabitants.Meanwhile,the subjective economic status plays a dominant role.The verification results of Bootstrap and KHB methods all demonstrate the robustness of those mechanisms.Based on these conclusions,this paper argues that encouraging rural residents to work in non-farm fields is an efficient method to promote their level of well-being.Specifically,(i)The government is supposed to develop county and village economies to optimize non-farm employment markets.To improve the well-being level of rural inhabitants,rural individuals can be encouraged to devote themselves in non-farm fields,thereby promoting county urbanization and village industrialization.(ii)Policies that are favorable for agriculture are supposed to be further improved to safeguard rights and interests of rural residents comprehensively.It is necessary to revise the regulations that keep rural populations from integrating into cities and towns to break down policy barriers and protect rural inhabitants’ employment rights and livelihoods.(iii)It is necessary to maintain the people-oriented principle and strengthen humanistic care on a spiritual level.The government should pay attention to rural residents’ group differences in non-farm employment as well.While assisting vulnerable groups and regions,it is also indispensable to focus on rural residents’ mental health and enrich their spiritual and cultural lives.