Impacts Of The Aging Labor Force On Bamboo Production Inputs And Efficiency

With the acceleration of urbanization process in China,structure of rural labor force has undergone tremendous changes.The accelerated outflow of rural youth labor force result a large number of old labor force engaged in agricultural production in rural areas.The aging of labor force has an important impact on the development of rural economy.So it is necessary to improve forestry production efficiency through clarify the relationship between the aging of labor force and forestry production.It is of great significance for improving forestry production efficiency and increasing farmers' incomes.This research selected bamboo as the object of research,6 administrative villages in Anji County as the study area,researching the impact of the aging of labor force on the inputs of bamboo production and the bamboo production technical efficiency.First,the statistical description of the status quo of the aging of labor force in the sample area and the characteristics of the bamboo forest plots;Second,analyzing the impact of the aging of labor force on the inputs of bamboo production through the use of multiple regression models;Finally,using the trans-log stochastic frontier production function model,this paper analyzed the impact of the aging of labor force on the bamboo production technical efficiency.The main conclusions are as follows:(1)At present,there exists the phenomenon of the aging of labor force in Anji County.The labor force was not highly educated,who engaged in bamboo production activities in the sample areas.The scale of bamboo land was small,and the quality of bamboo land was fertile.Bamboo income was still one of the important sources of income for households.The aging of labor force will reduced the inputs of labor force and capital in bamboo production,and will reduced the output of bamboo production.(2)The aging of labor force had significant negative impact on the input of labor force and capital in bamboo production.It means compared with the middle-aged households,elderly households have less labor and capital investment in bamboo production.Young households had a positive impact on the investment in bamboo production.It means young households have more capital invested in the bamboo production than middle-aged households.In addition,the scale of family labor force had a positive impact on the inputs of labor force and capital in bamboo production.The bamboo land was leased and the distance from home had significant positive impact on the input of labor force in bamboo production.The number of bamboo plots had a significant impact on the input of capital in bamboo production,while the distance from the road had a significant negative impact on the input of capital in bamboo production.And the robust estimation results showed that the ageing of labor force rate also had a negative impact on the input of labor force and capital in bamboo production.(3)The bamboo production average technical efficiency was only 66.69% and had large room for technical efficiency enhancement.With the input of existing technologies and factors of production,there was still room for improvement in the technical efficiency of bamboo production in farmer households.The error of the stochastic frontier production function mainly comes from the technical inefficiency,only 8.85% of the error was caused by random disturbance factors.The error of stochastic frontier production function model was aroused mainly by technical efficiency loss,and the output elasticity of labor factor,land factor and capital factor were 0.268 4?0.360 1?0.286 9 respectively.Due to the seasonal of bamboo production and labor price too high factors,expanding the scale of bamboo production and increase capital input was the important way to raise the level of local bamboo production.The aging labor force had a negative impact on the bamboo production technical efficiency,mainly because the aging effect of elderly labor force exceeds the cumulative effect.Among the control variables,the proportion of bamboo income to total household income,family labor force and the bamboo land was leased had different degrees of positive impact on the bamboo production technical efficiency.But the number of bamboo plots had a significant negative impact on bamboo production technical efficiency.In addition,the robust estimation results showed that the ageing of labor force rate also had a significant negative impact on the bamboo production technical efficiency.Based on the above analysis,for policy recommendations,this paper suggested that policy makers may consider stimulate and improve the production efficiency in bamboo sector.