The Impact And Impact Effect Of Social Capital On The Farmers’ Income

Rural issues concerning "agriculture, countryside and farmers” are vitalproblems related to the entire national economy and social development. The farmers’income is the core of it. Several studies have shown that social capital is an importantfactor effecting regional economic development and farmers’ income. So, socialcapital has been much concerned now. We useing participatory evaluation methodsand stratified random sampling in Zhangye City, Gannan Tibetan AutonomousPrefecture and Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, acquired the data of665farmersabout social capital, human capital, natural capital, physical capital and their income.We calculate the social capital of peasant household in the three areas by entropymethod, then based on the existing research, use the multiple linear regression modelto analysis the factors influencing the farmers’ income. We take farmers’ income as thedependent variable, human capital, physical capital and natural capital as controlvariables, the three elements of social capital and social capital index as independentvariables, which were introduced into the model in turn. In the end, advices are givento improve farmers’ income. In order to further explain the impact mechanism ofsocial capital on the farmers’ income. We established income path model by whichthe relationship between social capital and farmer′income was showed. Then AMOSsoftware was used to calculate the path coefficient for each path. In the end, advicesare given to improve farmers’income.The results show that:①The social capital index in Zhangye is highest, and is upto0.8154; The index in Gannan is0.7377,next to it in Zhangye; The social capitalindex in Linxia is minimum, reached only0.7128.②The farmers’ general trust,participation to associations, the resources inserted in network, mutual norms and thesocial capital index of farmers have significant positive correlation on peasanthousehold income; When generally trust, participation to associations, the networkresources, mutual norms and social capital index of farmers increased one unit, thefarmers’ income increased0.348,0.057,0.493,0.179and0.445units respectively.③Compared to each dimensionality of social capital, Introducing social capital indexin the model1lead to adjusted R2change most, so,we are sure that the combinedaction of trust, network and norm can bring more influence upon household income than separated.④The total effect of social capital affecting farmers income is0.683,which directly effect is0.596, much higher than the indirect effect0.087;⑤Throughthe ability of obtain information,obtain the new technologies, resist risks, credit andparticipate in political，social capita indirectly effect the farmers′income，and theeffects were0.025,0.013,0.029,0.007and0.012. At last, We proposed somesuggestions to increase farmers′income and some prospect for further study.