Household Labour Migration and Farmers’ Access to Productive Agricultural Services: A Case Study from Chinese Provinces

Zhe Chen, Apurbo Sarkar, Md. Shakhawat Hossain, Xiaojing Li and Xianli Xia
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Zhe Chen: College of Economics and Management, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Apurbo Sarkar: College of Economics and Management, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Md. Shakhawat Hossain: College of Agronomy, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Xiaojing Li: College of Economics and Management, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China
Xianli Xia: College of Economics and Management, Northwest Agriculture and Forestry University, Yangling 712100, China

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 10, 1-20

Abstract: Household labour migration experiences may have a staggering impact within developing countries, especially in dynamic societies like China, where labour migration is obvious. The present study’s objective is to investigate whether household labour migration contributes to the probability of farmers’ access to productive agricultural services. The study’s empirical setup is comprised of household survey data of 541 farmers in Shaanxi, Henan, and Sichuan provinces. The study proposes a counterfactual model to evaluate the average processing effect of an urban migrant with the help of the endogenous transformation of the Probit model. The results show that labour migration for work directly affects farmers’ access to productive agricultural services and indirectly affects farmers’ access to productive agricultural services through three channels: labour input, land transfers, and planting structure adjustments. The study further confirms that labour migration for work has a significant heterogeneity in the probability of obtaining productive agricultural services for farmers with or without non-agricultural income. Simultaneously, the labour migration area for work has significant heterogeneity in the probability of farmer households’ access to productive agricultural services. The government should extend support towards productive agriculture services. Agricultural demonstration services and on-hand training of migrant labour should be highlighted.

Keywords: migrant workers; productive services; endogenous transformation; Probit model; treatment effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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