The Influence Of Children’s Migration On The Agricultural Labor Supply Of Rural Elderly

Under the social background of rapid development of new urbanization and gradual transformation of rural economy and society,it is the cornerstone of promoting social harmony and stability and the inevitable requirement of a well-off society to constantly improve the living standard and well-being level of the elderly in rural areas and make them share the fruits of economic development fairly.With the continuous transfer of rural young and middle-aged labor force to cities and towns,a series of changes have taken place in the intergenerational relationship and the intergenerational labor force allocation within the family.Based on theories such as new family economics,new labor migration economic theory and individual labor supply decision-making models,the study constructed a theoretical framework for the impact of children’s migrant workers on the agricultural labor supply of the elderly.Furthermore,this paper studies the impact of children’s migration on the probability and time of agricultural labor participation of the elderly in rural families,as well as the heterogeneity of the impact of children’s migration on the agricultural labor supply of the elderly in different genders,age groups,health levels by using the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study(CHARLS)data in 2015.In terms of mechanism discussion,this paper verifies the intermediary effect of land transfer and intergenerational economic support on reducing the agricultural labor supply of the elderly based on the intermediary effect model and the intermediary effect test procedure proposed by Wen Zhonglin(2004).The empirical results show that labor compensation effect,land transfer out effect and intergenerational economic support effect all exist,that is,children’s going out to work increases the agricultural labor supply of the elderly,and the higher the proportion of children’s going out to work,the farther the distance of going out to work,the more the labor supply of the elderly increases.Children’s going out to work is conducive to the transfer of land and increase of intergenerational economic support.The transfer of land and intergenerational economic support can also reduce the agricultural labor supply of the elderly to a certain extent.From the empirical results,children’s migrant work increased the probability of agricultural labor participation of the elderly by 5%-6%,and the agricultural labor time increased by 73.81-110.81 hours.The proportion of children going out to work increased by 1%,the probability of labor participation of the elderly increased by 0.1%,and the labor time increased by 1.43 hours.The farther the children go out to work,the more the burden of agricultural labor increases.The supply of agricultural labor(including the probability of agricultural labor participation and agricultural labor time)of female,poor health and 66-75-year-old people is more affected by their children’s going out to work.Based on this,this paper argues that in order to reduce the supply of agricultural labor for the elderly in rural areas and improve their welfare,we need to do the following work well: adjust measures to local conditions to help rural revitalization and attract migrant workers to work locally nearby.Give full play to the role of the public employment service sector,improve the employment capacity of migrant workers,and promote the rapid growth of their income.Smooth the land circulation channels,standardize and orderly promote the marketization of land circulation.Speed up the improvement of the quality of life of the elderly in rural areas and reduce their dependence on land..