Effects Of Herdsmen’s Individual Social Network On Their Willingness To Purchase Livestock Insurances

China is a large animal husbandry production country,and animal husbandry is an important part of agriculture.In 2018,the total output value of animal husbandry in China was 2869.74 billion yuan,accounting for 25.27% of the total output value of agricultural production.At the same time,animal husbandry,especially in pastoral areas,is a typical weak industry with high cost and high risk.In order to realize the sustainable development of animal husbandry,the governments at all levels have been trying and exploring to develop thepolicy based animal husbandry insurance for many years.Since the implementation of regional insurance pilot program in 2007,livestock insurance has made a leap forward development,and now it has covered all provinces in China.In 2018,the level of livestock insurance coverage exceeded that of planting insurance for the first time,making a great contribution to improving the income of Chinese farmers and promoting the stable development of animal husbandry.But there is still a problem of insufficient demand.Theoretically,the higher the risk of animal husbandry production,the higher the potential demand for livestock insurance.However,there is a low willingness of herdsmen to participate in the government-subsidized livestock insurance in China.China’s rural society is characterized by a typical "differential pattern".As the structural explanation of social capital and the supplement of formal system,social network has a significant impact on individual economic decision-making.What are the structural characteristics of the social network of herdsmen in pastoral areas in China? Does social network affect the willingness of herdsmen to participate in government-subsidized livestock insurance? What is its internal mechanism of action? These are all scientific issues that need to be explored in depth.This paper analyzes the existing research results at home and abroad,combs the main influencing factors and mechanism of herdsmen’s willingness to participate in the insurance,and focuses on the social network’s impact on the individual willingness to participate in the insurance and its mechanism.Based on the research data of four villages in Menyuan Hui Autonomous County of Qinghai Province in 2019,social network analysis method and empirical analysis method are used to put social network into the theoretical framework of influencing factors of herdsmen’s willingness to participate in insurance.This paper empirically tests the influence of the structural characteristics of social network on the purchase intention of government-subsidized livestock insurance of herdsmen,provides a new research perspective for the impact of social network on individual economicdecision-making.The main conclusions of the paper are as follows:The social network of herdsmen has a significant impact on their willingness to participate in animal husbandry insurance.The results show that the positive effect of formal risk dispersion function from herdsman’s individual social network outperformed its the negative effect of the informal risk dispersion function.The former works mainly through the information transmission process in rural social network:a herder occupying a more central position or more structural holes,has a stronger ability to access,transmit,even control information and resources,hence would have a higher willingness to participate in the insurance scheme.Among other factors that affect the willingness of herdsmen to participate in the insurance,age has a significant positive impact on the willingness of herdsmen to participate in the insurance,older and male herdsmen are more willing to purchase the livestock insurance.Besides,adopting a combined production mode of normadism with captivity,and increasing the level of trust in insurance institutions also help to improve herdsmen’s willingness to purchase.In addition,the study also found that the effectiveness of livestock insurance publicity is low,and the market risk faced by farmers has not been effectively guaranteed.Based on the above research results,this paper puts forward the corresponding countermeasures and suggestions from the aspects of giving full play to the positive role of the key leaders of herdsmen’s social network,strengthening the construction of ethnic culture in the pastoral areas,promoting the communication among the government,insurance institutions and herdsmen,reasonably implementing the breeding mode under the policy of grass storage balance,and accelerating the exploration of the price insurance of livestock in China,so as to promote it rapidly and effectively The popularization of policy based livestock insurance.