Research On The Poverty Reduction Effect Of Human Capital Of Rural Labor Force

Poverty is an enduring theme of economic research.For a country or region,theoretical research and realistic governance to poverty is not only a heavy historical task,but also an objective requirement that we must face directly in the process of economic and social development,and it is extremely important.The understanding of poverty is not invariable.It continues to change with the development of economy and society.The dynamics,complexity and relativity of poverty also mean that the research on it conforms to the development of the times and has far-reaching significance.Since the reform and opening up more than 40 years ago,China’s poverty reduction strategy has achieved significant results.In 2020,China’s poverty alleviation battle has achieved a comprehensive victory,and the rural poor under the current standard have been lifted out of absolute poverty.What follows is the need to continue to consolidate the achievements of poverty alleviation and prevent the return to poverty.In the new stage of poverty reduction,the problem of relative poverty and vulnerability to poverty has attracted more and more scholars’ attention,and has become an important factor hindering China’s construction of a modern and powerful country.Clarifying the influencing factors and mechanisms of relative poverty and vulnerability to poverty is conducive to enriching theoretical research on poverty,improving the poverty impact mechanism,and providing theoretical reference for future poverty reduction work.At the same time,human capital is the endogenous development power of peasant households and has an important impact on peasant households’ income level.Therefore,this paper tries to find the reasons for peasant households poverty from the human capital of labor force.Based on the above background,this paper studies the impact and mechanism of human capital of labor force on peasant household poverty from two aspects:educational and healthy human capital of labor force.The existing literature mainly studies the direct impact of human capital of labor force on the poverty of peasant households,but the discussion on the mechanism of causality is not comprehensive.This paper makes in-depth discussions and supplements in this regard.The contents of this study are as follows: First,theoretical analysis.To sort out and summarize relevant literature on poverty,human capital,non-agricultural employment,and dependency burden,mainly based on poverty occurrence and development theory,human capital theory,and agricultural labor transfer theory,define the concept of peasant rural households,human capital of labor force,non-agricultural employment,and dependency burden.Then,an intermediary and adjustment analysis framework is constructed to discuss the impact mechanism of human capital of labor force on peasant households poverty,and relevant hypotheses are put forward.Second,empirical analysis.Based on the data of four China Family Panel Studies from 2012 to 2018,under different poverty standards of absolute poverty,relative poverty and vulnerability to poverty,the probit model is used to verify the impact of human capital of labor force on peasant households poverty,and the impact difference of educational and healthy human capital of labor force on peasant households poverty is observed according to the marginal impact;using the intermediary effect model to study the intermediary role of non-agricultural employment in the process of human capital affecting peasant households poverty;a moderated mediation model is used to verify whether the dependency burden plays a moderating role in the first and second half of the mediating effect of non-agricultural employment.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:(1)Under different poverty standards,the educational human capital of labor force has a significant role in reducing poverty.In other words,educational human capital of labor force has a significant negative impact on the absolute poverty,relative poverty,and vulnerability to poverty of peasant households.The higher the average number of years of education of the household labor force,the more conducive it is for peasant household to reduce poverty.The healthy human capital of labor force has a significant negative impact on absolute poverty,relative poverty,and vulnerability to poverty(relative poverty standard).The greater the proportion of healthy labor force,the more conducive it is for peasant household to to reduce poverty.However,the impact of healthy human capital on vulnerability to poverty(absolute poverty standard)is not significant.In the specific impact,the marginal impact of educational human capital of labor force on peasant households poverty is greater than that of healthy human capital.Therefore,this paper believes that the poverty reduction effect of educational human capital is more prominent than that of healthy human capital of labor force.(2)No matter whether the proxy variable of peasant household poverty is absolute poverty,relative poverty or vulnerability to poverty,non-agricultural employment is the mediating variable of human capital of labor force reducing peasant household poverty,and plays the mediating role in the impact mechanism.Specifically,the mediating effect of non-agricultural employment in the impact of educational human capital of labor force on peasant household poverty is between 29%-92%,and the intermediary effect of healthy human capital of labor force on peasant household poverty is between28%-55%.(3)The dependency burden plays a negative regulatory role in the mediating process of non-agricultural employment.These conclusions basically verify the hypothesis proposed in this paper.According to the research conclusion,this paper puts forward the countermeasures and suggestions in a targeted manner.First,increase public financial expenditures on education and medical care,and formulate human capital accumulation plans for poor households by stage of poverty.Second,encourage the non-agricultural employment of the rural labor force and provide a good non-agricultural employment environment.Third,to improve social welfare,we should not only improve the social security system related to services for the elderly,children and adolescents and medical services,but also strengthen the skill training of the labor force,and provide relevant social security systems to balance the problem between the burden of support and the stability of non-agricultural employment,and the problem between support expenditure and the labor force’s own human capital investment.