Rice Theory And The Insurance Demand

Recently,insurance market has witnessed a rapid development in our country with the increasing premium income and mounting insurance depth and insurance density,as well as more diversified financing way,however insurance demand exhibits great differences between different regions.Insurance demand plays a decisive role in the development of the insurance industry.China's insurance density remains exponential upward trend.In 1994 China's insurance density was 32 yuan/person,and in 2016 it reached 2242 yuan/person.Although China's average per capita insurance premium is significantly lower than other developed country,the regional insurance demand is different.In 2016 China's average insurance density was 2242 yuan/person,but the highest insurance density in Beijing reached 8468 yuan/person,and the lowest in Guizhou province was only 904 yuan/person.Many factors will have a significant impact on insurance demand,such as economic development,education level,financial development,industrialization level,population and so on.Cultural differences between different countries play a role that cannot be ignored in the factors that affect insurance demand.Similarly,the cultural differences between regions in China are significant.Taking different cultural areas in China as the research objects,this paper studies whether the regional culture has significant impact on insurance demand in the national level.It has been shown that both at home and abroad,cultural differences play a vital role in insurance demand.There are many theories trying to explain the cultural differences between different areas,including Rice Theory,which divides China into rice-growing areas and wheat-growing areas.And people in rice-growing areas are more likely to share Rice Culture.As the old saying goes,each place has its streams in from all over the country.People with different cultural backgrounds behave differently which shows the significant impact of culture.This paper with the empirical study finds that Rice Culture and its modified forms can indeed reduce insurance demand,while other theories cannot,such as modernization theory hypothesis,pathogens,farming culture,coastal culture and religious culture.The empirical results show that cultural differences caused by main food production patterns can significantly affect insurance demand,while other cultural segmentation theories fail to achieve significant results.This paper from the macro,meso and micro perspective gives many suggestions,in the hope of forming insurance promotion and cultural integration.This paper hopes to promote insurance products and cultivate people's consciousness of insurance in the development of the insurance industry,and makes the government,insurance companies and insurance consumers take attention to the cultural differences that can affect the demand of insurance.