Research On The Social Capital Of Rural Household And Its Income Based On Daxiao Liangshan Region

The issue of peasant households' income growth in poverty-stricken ethnic minority areas is an important part of poverty alleviation in China.It is important and significant for the households in poor areas to find a new way of production factors growth with limited production factors,such as land,capital,labor,etc.Recent studies have revealed that social capital,as important as human capital and physical capital,is also a key factor for the growth of peasants' income.While,the impact of households' social capital in ethnic minority on income growth has not been studied systematically so far.So the study is of great significance to enrich social capital theory,and to guide the practice of poverty alleviation in ethnic minority areas as well.Guided by the theory of social capital and the questionnaire survey data,the dissertation has made a systematic study on the households' social capital and the influence on their income by taking Liangshan Yi region,Sichuan province as sample.The content discussed in this paper includes the following four parts:Firstly,the composite index of the households' social capital is measured by ?the method of cognitive and comprehensive measure of network? in the poverty-stricken ethnic minority areas.This method is based on social network index as the subject,which integrates into the related and cognitive social capital index.Network scale is an important dimension of social capital,but the measurement of this special group's social capital is usually employed by cognitive index,such as trust,participation and norms in the existing literature.In a certain degree,the lack of social network dimension is contrary to the nature of social capital.To make up for the insufficiency of the existing literature,the households' social network scale is measured through the survey on sample region in this dissertation.The households' social capital in the sample areas is divided into four dimensions,including network scale,network diversity,trust & mutual assistance and network structure,on which the farmer's social capital composite index is measured.Analysis shows that the division of farmers' social capital dimensions is upheld,and it's also found that the peasants' network scale has the most influence on income.It will be not accurate to count the social capital without the measurement of network scale.Secondly,the effect of households' social capital on the income and the total increment is studied in the dissertation.The existing literature shows that households' social capital in the general area not only has a correlation with farmers' income but also has a positive impact on the revenue.Through the construction of the production function,the households' social capital has a significantly positive influence on farmers' income and increment is further proved in poverty-stricken ethnic minority areas.It's also further researched that the households' social capital has a significantly positive influence on different income level,but the households' social capital return varies from different income level.Though the farmers' social capital has a significant impact on the income from different level,social capital return from low-income groups to the high-income class is in a U-shaped distribution.From various dimensions of social capital,the influence of the households' network scale on different income and increment ranks first,and the network difference ranks second.From the comparison of social capital,material capital and human capital's point of view,the influence of households' social capital on income level in the sample areas ranks the second after material capital.Thirdly,the social capital theory is introduced into the framework of households' income mobility analysis,and the influence of social capital on liberating farmers from poverty and preventing them to be poor is explanatorily researched.In recent years,domestic scholars has paid much attention to study the problem of household' income mobility,but the research on the combination of social capital and the poor's income has not yet been found.This dissertation not only broadens the research of social capital field,but also enriches the study of income mobility.Research shows that the farmers' social capital in poverty-stricken ethnic minority areas has a positive impact on income mobility,meanwhile,the four dimensions of farmers' social capital have a significant influence on the farmers' income mobility.Among the three kinds of capitals,the impact of households' social capital on income mobility ranks first,material capital ranks the second,and human capital has no perceptible effect on it.A critical point was found during the conversion of the households' mobility from poverty to non-poverty.During the process of transformation,social capital and physical capital are both the mobility factor which can contribute people to get out of poverty and the stability factor of preventing people from returning poverty.In light of the poor measurement practicability of existing income mobility and lack of effective measuring index,the "Escape Poverty Index" concept has been put forward in this paper.By employing this measure,it is found that the impact of social capital on households' income mobility is of great significance,which overtakes more than the effect of material capital and human capital.Fourthly,the idea that social capital grows first is argued,after the comparison of material capital,human capital,and social capital impact on peasants' income.The dissertation not only analyzes the limitations of the farmers' physical and human capital growth,but also studies the possibilities of social capital growth in poverty-stricken ethnic minority areas.It's shown that the growth of traditional factors of production,for example,land,capital and labor,is limited in poor ethnic minority areas.Nevertheless,the farmers' social capital has better growth and can achieve a preferential growth.Therefore,the poor households' social capital could grow faster than that of non poor households.