Investigation And Analysis Of Peasants’ Willingness To Transfer Or Quit Homesteads

The curtain of the new domestic reform of the land system has been raised,and the countryside homesteads are the essential properties of the 620 million peasants in China,closely related to their survival,development and benefits.As a significant part of the land system reform,homestead reform and its methods as well as direction have caught great attention from the whole society.How to revitalize the vacant homesteads and optimize the homestead allocative efficiency are inevitable questions to deal with,and the transfer of the homestead usufruct and the peasants’ willing to quit are crucial to solve such problems.Via analyses of the historical changes and current situations of the homestead system in China based on extensive reading of academic documents,this dissertation generalizes relevant concepts and connotations of homestead,and points out the defects and shortcomings of the present homestead system.With the method of questionnaire,the article collects surveys of peasants living in different economic levels,investigating their willing to quit and circulate the homestead and its influencing factors.This paper also designs the Logistic Regression Model of peasants’ willing to quit and circulate homesteads with proper influencing elements,conducts the regression analyses of the economically-developed Tai-He Village as well as the economically-underdeveloped An-Cang Village respectively,and compares the extent of the different influencing elements based on real results from the surveys.Through an insightful analysis and in-depth generalization of the regression results,the conclusion has been drawn with a discussion of how to revitalize the vacant homesteads,how to circulate the usufruct of homesteads legally and how to compensate the peasants if they are willing to quit.Here are the conclusions:1.Peasants in Tai-He Village have higher literacy levels than those in An-Cang Village,with more labour forces in cities and higher annual family incomes.There is a huge difference between the contracting lands and agricultural acreage in the two villages.Tai-He Village has more farm lands,while An-Cang Village has more mountain forests,for the farm lands there have mainly been damaged by natural disasters.However,Tai-He Village wastes a lot of its contracting lands,while An-Cang Village has no vacant farm land.Despite different economic conditions,those who claim their willing to circulate the homesteads are over a half of the total population in both villages,and those who clearly state their unwillingness to quit the homesteads only account for a quarter of the total population in both villages.2.Different factors have different influences on different regions.For peasants in more developed villages,the order comes from family population,individual situations to the utilization of the homesteads,while family income has little influence on them.For those in undeveloped villages,the utilization of the homesteads and individual situations play more important roles than family population and income.3.Considering the more vacant homesteads,peasants living in different economic levels are willing to circulate or quit the homesteads to get more benefits.Peasants with higher education are more willing to do so and will have more diverse developments.The security function of the homestead is more important to peasants with larger family population who are less willing to quit or circulate their homesteads.Peasants in economically-developed regions are more willing to circulate and quit the homesteads,for they can make fortune as migrant workers in near cities and towns,and have more opportunities to settle down in cities with lower residence moving costs.But as for peasants in undeveloped regions,the homestead is still acting as their living insurance,for it is much more difficult for them to settle down in cities as short-term workers far away from their homes.Modification and perfection of homestead system laws and rules as well as full inquiries and statistical surveys of current countryside homesteads are in urgent demand to guarantee peasants’ usufructuary rights and allocate the homestead resources rationally.Conditions permitting,compensated use of homesteads should be carried out,and then scientific and feasible paid system of homestead quitting should go in parallel with the legal transfer of the homestead use right.At last but not the least,more effective managements and guidances from the government are also indispensable.