The journal makes deep searches on rural reformation and development and shows current condition of chinese villages in different points of view. Main readers include researchers of rural economics and theory institutes, teachers and students of higher education and people who search rural economics and social problems.
This article analyzes whether the integrated medical insurance system (IMIS) can improve the social integration of agricultural floating population at psychological level in China, using the survey data in 2014. The empirical results show that the IMIS can increase their sense of local identity and enhance the probability for long stay. When the study adds a series of control variables and employs a cross-section difference-in-differences estimation, the results remain to be robust. One possible explanation is that the IMIS improves migrants’ utilization of healthcare services and facilitates reimbursement, thus improving their psychological integration.
Legislative deficiencies regarding the mortgage on land contract and management right are disadvantageous for effective financing for farmers. These deficiencies include an unclear definition of mortgage products and mortgage credit terms, and the disturbance of mortgage freedom by outsourcers and collective members. Based on the multiple values of freedom, equality, efficiency and order, this paper provides a systematic consideration of problems from the perspective of mortgage subject, object and real right alternation. Research results suggest that in the aspect of the macro value concept, on the one hand, the idea of legal paternalism needs to be transformed in order to establish the dominant position of farmers in property right. On the other hand, there is a need to abolish the consent right of outsourcers and priority of collective members in the process of mortgage financing. In the aspect of designing micro-rules, the study disapproves of the fact that farmer members as mortgagors should meet certain requirements such as having a stable non-agricultural occupation and stable source of income. Only in case of commercial behavior can financial institutions become the mortgagees. Meanwhile, it also denies establishing mortgage limitation upon the nature, acquisition means and the land areas for a mortgage. Finally, the study proposes the adoption of an effective mode in the mortgage registration, the possibility of mortgage repayment in the discount rate, and the implementation of auction and sales through non-litigation procedures.
In existing economics literature, many studies explain the evolution of agricultural management mode from the perspective of individual farmers’ rational choices, but none has investigated the role the community plays in this process. Based on the institutional change theory, this study constructed a framework about the evolution of AMM by introducing the community dimension. The study used the following community factors to explain the mechanism of AMM: the change of the village’s factor endowments and its structure, community culture, the degree of marketization, the effect of rural elites, the power structure in the community and the social relationship. Furthermore, the study applied the framework to analyze the process of the evolution of AMM in two villages from Fenyang City of Shanxi Province. According to the theoretical and case analyses, the study suggested that the multi-dimensional development of AMM was caused by community factors, and there was no optimal AMM for each region. In the current process of AMM’s innovation, the government should focus on the construction of rural community culture (such as community internal trust) and cultivation of rural elites so as to promote the transformation of traditional agriculture to modern agriculture.
In the context of implementing the strategy for constructing ecological civilization in China, exploring the factors that influence farmers’ willingness to participate in ecological management is beneficial to correcting the deviation in ecological restoration and compensation policies and to improving the efficiency of the policy implementation. Taking Weihe River Basin in Shaanxi Province as an example and by using micro data from a survey to build a structural equation modeling, this paper explored how cognition of ecological values (including market values and non-market values of river-basin ecosystem services) could influence farmers’ willingness to participate in ecological management of river basins. The results showed that both market value cognition and non-market value cognition of river-basin ecosystem services had a significant promoting effect on farmers’ willingness to participate in ecological management of river basins, and the former had a greater effect than the latter in terms of their influences (the path coefficients were 0.195 and 0.174, respectively). At the same time, age and the proportion of agricultural laborers in a family were found to have negative effects on farmers’ willingness to participate in ecological management, while the educational level was found to have a positive effect on their willingness to participate. Besides, gender should be taken into consideration as male farmers were more willing to participate in ecological management than female farmers.
Based on the subdivision of land property rights structure, this article provides a literature review on farmland property right system reform. In the aspects of the connotation of farmland property rights, the relationship between the changing land property rights and the development of farmland markets, the impact of the changing land property rights on the agricultural production performance and the reform of farmland, the study rarely finds profound and consistent discussions on the features of land property rights structure subdivision. Therefore, the article further suggests broadening the research domain by constructing a framework of analysis. Based on this proposed framework, the subdivision of the land property rights structure should be defined, based upon which the farmland use rights, the farmland usufruct and the farmland disposal rights should further be subdivided. Moreover, an explanation for the changing land property rights structure subdivision should be provided through the theoretical logic of rent dissipation, market evolution and structure subdivision. Furthermore, the inherent mechanism should be explored that affects agricultural production performance. Finally, the study suggests an approach to realize an effective separation of three kinds of farmland rights under the background of modern agricultural development.
This paper analyzes the current weakening of family support for the elderly in rural China and its determinants and uses the survey data collected from 726 farmers in 13 areas of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. The results show that family support for the aged has become completely weakened. The degree of financial support decreases by 25.0%, daily care support decreases by 5.6%, and mental support decreases by 30.7%. On the one hand, the decrease in the number of children weakens family support in the aspect of emotional comfort, and the smaller family size results in the weakened family financial support. On the other hand, social endowment insurance system for rural residents promotes elderly support in the aspect of daily care and mental support. Migrant workers bring about weakened financial support but promote the realization of mental support. Furthermore, farmers in worse health condition are more likely to receive less family support in the daily care and financial support, but farmers with a higher level of education are more likely to receive more financial support and daily care. Moreover, the results show that the increase in family deposits weakens financial support yet increases family support. In the meanwhile, the study finds that the older farmers are, the more likely they will face weakened daily care and mental support, and married rural couples are more likely to receive financial and mental support.