Study On The Impact Of Labor Transfer On Farmers Livelihood Change

Rural industrial development is the fundamental strategy to drive rural labor transfer and promote stable poverty alleviation in poor areas,it is also the critical point to China’s rural revitalization.Labor transfer is conducive to helping farmers break through the shortage of resource allocation and conversion caused by poverty restrictions,which can help farming households diversify livelihood risks and improve livelihood income.According to the sustainable livelihood analysis framework,livelihood capital represents the ability of farmers to develop livelihood and is the basis and starting point for farmers to implement livelihood strategy.Labor transfer constitutes the environmental variable for the change and restructuring of farmers’ livelihood capital,and the change of livelihood capital determines the implementation direction of farmers’ livelihood strategies.This study focuses on the typical village of labor transfer,Mopi Village,Xinping County,Yunnan Province,and introduces labor transfer into the analysis of farmers’ sustainable livelihoods,establishing an analysis framework of farmers’ livelihood dynamics,aiming to reveal the mechanism of "labor transfer→change of livelihood capital→change of livelihood strategy".Firstly,based on the sustainable livelihood analysis framework,we constructed a livelihood capital evaluation index system for farm households in Mopi village,quantified farm household livelihood capital through field survey data and farm household livelihood questionnaire data,compared and analyzed the characteristics and differences of livelihood capital changes of different types of farm households before and after labor transfer using the mean T-test method,and constructed a seemingly uncorrelated regression model to empirically test the effects of labor transfer on five types of farm household livelihood capital.Second,the state transfer matrix was used to reveal the impact of labor transfer on the livelihood capital of farmers.Second,the state transfer matrix was used to reveal the characteristics of changes in farmers’ livelihood strategies and to define the types of changes in farmers’ livelihood strategies.Finally,we construct the binary Logistic regression model to analyze the influencing factors of livelihood strategies of farmers with different types of change,and a multivariate Logistic regression model is constructed to identify the impact of livelihood capital and its indicators on the relative changes of livelihood strategies of farmers.(1)Labor transfer promoted the overall livelihood capital level of farm households.The total value of livelihood capital of transferred households was significantly higher than that of non-transferred households.(2)Labor transfer has different impacts on the five types of livelihood capital of farmers.The transfer leads to the decrease of natural capital of farmers,and promotes the increase of physical,the human,the financial and social capitals of farmers.The seemingly unrelated regression estimation results further show that labor transfer has a significant negative impact on farmers’ natural capital,and a significant positive impact on human,financial and social capital,but no significant impact on physical capital.(3)The livelihood strategies of farming households in Mopi village have changed significantly,trend of non-agricultural being the most typical,followed by trend of part-time livelihoods,and the return of labour to the village in recent years,while a few farming households have become more agricultural.At present,the number of different types of farming households in descending order is: trend of non-agricultural > trend of part-time livelihoods > maintain agricultural > maintain part-time livelihoods > trend of agricultural >maintain non-agricultural.(4)The stock of livelihood capital and its combination determine the direction of change in the livelihood strategy of farm households.Natural capital and physical capital play an important role in sustaining agricultural livelihoods,while human capital and financial capital are pivotal factors influencing trend of non-agricultural livelihoods.Finally,the human,the natural,the physical and the social capitals are critical factors influencing trend of part-time livelihoods,with the degree of influence decreasing from human capital to social capital.(5)In the absence of strong external disturbances,changes in the livelihood strategies of farmers will be a long-term adaptation process,farmers will maintain their agricultural livelihoods in the short term.Compared to the type of subsistence farming livelihoods,the higher the natural capital,the less likely it is that farming livelihoods will change towards part-time and non-agricultural;the higher the physical capital,the more likely it is that farming livelihoods will change towards part-time;the higher the human capital,the more likely it is that farming livelihoods will change towards non-agricultural;and the higher the financial and social capital,the more likely it is that farming livelihoods will change towards part-time and non-agricultural.The study indicates that labor force transfer has a positive effect on promoting farm households’ livelihood capital enhancement and livelihood transformation,and that a combination of internal and external forces is needed to continuously promote rural labor force transfer in the future rural development process.In addition,the livelihood strategies of local farm households show a trend of differentiation,and the mechanisms of livelihood capital changes of different types of farm households should be explored in depth,and the potential livelihood risks of farm households should be analyzed,so as to effectively avoid returning to poverty.