Social Capital And Multidimensional Poverty Of Peasant Household

Poverty is a common problem facing all over the world.In pace with the rapid development of China's economic,income is no longer the only benchmark of measure poverty.Poverty is more manifested in the deprivation of people's “feasible abilities”,which includes access to education,disease relief,hunger eradication and other social rights.Thus,poverty is essentially a complex multidimensional phenomenon.In other words,measuring poverty from multiple dimensions can better grasp and describe the intension and extension of poverty.As is known to all,rural areas in China is the “main battlefield” of poverty.Although the incidence of absolute income poverty in rural areas has dropped to 3.1% by the end of 2017,farmers are facing new characteristics such as deeper poverty,greater difficulty in reducing poverty,and more prominent relative poverty and multidimensional poverty(MP).Therefore,this paper carries out research based on MP of farmers.Moreover,people are increasingly aware that poverty eradication can not only rely on traditional material capital and human capital,but also social capital is an important factor affecting poverty,whether at the individual,family or national level.Actually,China's rural areas is a “relational” society based on kinship,consanguinity and geography.Social capital plays an important role in rural areas with insufficient market mechanism.However,most of the existing studies only regard social capital as an single dimensional variable affecting farmers income and health,and do not pay attention to the impact of social capital on farmers MP.Therefore,from the perspective of social capital,this paper focuses on the mechanism and effect of social capital on peasant households MP.This paper follows the logical research thinking of questions raised,theoretical research,empirical research and policy research.Based on the reality of poverty in China's rural areas,the research method of combining normative research with empirical research is adopted to provide theoretical and policy basis for alleviating the MP of peasant households.Specifically,on the basis of accurately measuring the level of MP of rural households in China,this paper focuses on the construction of themechanism of social capital affecting MP of rural households.By using the China family panal studies(CFPS)data,and the effects of social capital on MP of peasant households was tested by using least squares method,quantile regression method,intermediary effect method,Probit method and instrumental variable method.Finally,based on the robust research conclusions,the paper puts forward the policy recommendations of accurate measurement and alleviating the MP of peasant households.The main research contents and conclusions of this paper are summarized as follows:Firstly,drawing lessons from and expanding the MP theory,the multidimensional poverty index(MPI)system of peasant households in China was constructed.The weights of indicators were selected by artificial neural network(ANN)method,and the breadth,depth and intensity of MP of peasant households were measured and decomposed from static and dynamic perspectives respectively.(1)Constructing a MPI system for rural households,including income,education,health,finance and other dimensions.Compared with the existing studies,this paper mainly adds financial dimension,which can better reflect the current MP situation in rural China.(2)ANN method was used to select the weight of each index,and the criteria for judging the advantages and disadvantages of different weight methods was established by summing up the errors.ANN method improves the disadvantage that equal weight method can not distinguish the relative importance of each index,and it is can better reflect the characteristics of randomness,discreteness and non-linearity among indexes.Moreover,in order to illustrate the advantages of the ANN method,this paper uses the total error method to establish the evaluation of equal weight method,coefficient of variation method and ANN method to select the evaluation criteria of each index weight in the MPI system of rural households in China.The results show that compared with the equal weight method and the coefficient of variation method,the ANN method can measure MP more accurately.(3)In order to understand the MP level and the main factors leading to poverty in Chinese peasant households,we use the A-F theory framework to measure and decompose the MP breadth,depth and intensity of peasant households and their evolution law from the static and dynamic perspectives using CFPS data.Secondly,the direct and indirect mechanism of social capital affecting MP of farners was constructed,and the threshold effect of it was deduced through mathematical model.Social capital directly affects farmers' MP by affecting their income,education,health improvement and financial services,and the indirectly affects through non-agricultural employment,credit constraints and social insurance.In addition,thethreshold mechanism of social capital affecting MP of peasant households was deduced through mathematical model.Thirdly,as a whole,the breadth,depth and intensity of MP of peasant households in China are decreasing year by year,and it is characterized by typical regional distribution.Factors of income,education and finance are the main reason of rural households poverty in China,and there are significant differences in the main causes of poverty in different regions.(1)The breadth,depth and intensity of MP of rural households in the whole country,as well as in the eastern,central and western regions,decreased from 2010 to2014.(2)The MPI of peasant households in the west is hirh while that is low in the east,which means the typical distribution,and the rural poverty situation in the central and Western regions,especially in the western regions,is relatively serious.(3)MPI decrease with the increase of the dimension of poverty and the rate of poverty reduction in the eastern region is significantly faster than that in the central and western regions,that is,the peasant households less prone to dimensional extreme poverty and the poverty dimension of peasant households in the eastern region is generally smaller than that in the central and western regions.(4)The MPI decomposition results show that factors of income,finance and education are the main reason of rural households poverty in our country.In the east region,financial is the main factor,which indicates that the low financial service ability has become the biggest obstacle to the development of the eastern peasant households in China.While in the central and western regions,income is the main factor,and the financial factor has gradually become the bottleneck.Fourthly,social capital can significantly alleviate the MP level of peasant households,but there is not only a simple linear relationship between social capital and MP of peasant households,but also a significant threshold effect between them.At the same time,the richer the social capital,the more conducive to alleviating the MP of rural households.Empirical research finds that:(1)Social capital can significantly reduce the breadth,depth and intensity of MP of farmers.Specifically,the richer the stock of social capital,the more helpful to alleviate the breadth,depth and intensity of MP of farmers.(2)Under different threshold variables,there is a significant non-linear relationship between social capital and MP of farmers,that is,there is a significant “threshold effect”.(3)When the stock of human capital,per capita income,financial services and social capital exceeds a certain threshold,social capital can significantly improve the breadth,depth and intensity of MP of peasant households.In addition,when the per capita income and the stock of social capital crossed the threshold,the negative impact of social capital on the MP of rural households gradually increased,that is,the richer the social capital,the more conducive to alleviating the MP of rural households.Fifthly,the mediating effect of social capital on MP of peasant households is established,and the non-agricultural employment of rural labor force is the mediating variable of social capital affecting MP of peasant households.By establishing the mediating effect model of social capital and MP of peasant households,the empirical study finds that the mediating effect of social capital on MP of farmers is established,and the non-agricultural employment of rural labor force is the mediating variable of social capital affecting MP of farmers.However,the proportion of the mediating effect that affects the breadth,depth and intensity of MP of rural households is different.Compared with the existing research,the innovation of this paper are as follows:(1)It expands the MPI evaluation system of peasant households,the ANN method is introduced to calculate the weight of indicators,which improves the accuracy and scientificity of MPI measurement,and measures and decomposes the MPI system of households.As Sen(1999)pointed out,poverty is not only manifested in low incomes,but also in deprivation of basic fesible abilities.Therefore,this paper argues that MP of peasant households refers to their income,education,health,living standards,financial services and other aspects in a state of inadequacy or deprivation.In particular,this paper was incorporated financial indicators into the MPI system,expanding the MPI system of households.Incorporating this index into the MPI system of peasant households is not only a consideration of China's rural conditions,but also reflects the essence and connotation of MP.Meanwhile,in view of the fact that the equal weight method can not distinguish the relative importance of each index,this paper uses the ANN method to calculate the weight of each index.Its advantages are as follows: it overcomes the interference of subjective human factors,can accurately measure the dynamic changes of dimensions,and can more scientifically describe the complex relationships between variables,such as discreteness,randomness and complex non-linearity,so as to obtain more reasonable index weights.Furthermore,most of the existing studies only focus on the MP breadth level of peasant households.This paper measures and decomposes the poverty breadth,depth and intensity of peasant households from the static and dynamic perspectives.(2)It enriches the research perspective of alleviating MP of rural households,this paper constructed the mechanism of social capital affecting the MP of rural households,and empirically tests the impact of social capital on the MP of rural households.There are many and complex factors affecting poverty.Social capital is the third largest capital after material capital and human capital,which has an important impact on poverty.However,most of the existing studies focus on the theoretical and empirical study of social capital on income poverty,but poverty is not just income poverty.Therefore,this paper focuses on the study of social capital on MP of farmers,theoretically constructed the mechanism of social capital affecting MP of peasant households,and empirically analysed the direct poverty reduction effect and threshold effect of social capital on MP of peasant households.(3)This study analyzed the transmission path of social capital affecting MP of rural households,and empirically analyzed the establishment of the mediation effect of social capital affecting MP of rural households by using the mediation effect method,providing a scientific path choice for alleviating the MP level of rural households.This paper also emphatically analysed the transmission mechanism of social capital affecting MP of peasant households,and then used the method of intermediary effect to empirically test that non-agricultural employment of rural labor force is the intermediary variable of social capital affecting MP of peasant households,and measured the proportion of intermediary variables in the impact of social capital on MP of rural households.To provide theoretical basis and scientific path choice for alleviating the MP level of peasant households.