| Driven by the "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets" development concept,the Tibet Autonomous Region urgently needs to break the inefficient traditional-animal-husbandry-based development pattern and instead seek more efficient and environment-friendlier ways to increase civil income.Developing non-pastoral employment（NE）is the fundamental way to solve ecological problems and achieve income growth in pastoral areas.Existing literature on NE does not combine income and structure,and lacks systematic evaluation.This paper studies the factors influencing non-pastoral employment income（NEI）and structure from the perspective of livelihood capital,systematically evaluates NE,and seeks a sustainable way to income growth for the Tibet Autonomous Region.This paper takes NE as the research object and used data from yearbook and field research.Through stratified random sampling,a total of 216 household questionnaires from 6 pastoral counties in the Tibet Autonomous Region from west to east were collected.Taking the annual household NEI as the income indicator,and the household non-pastoral income structure（NEIS）and population structure（NEPS）as the structure indicators,the logarithmic-linear model was used to analyze the factors influencing non-pastoral employment income and structure.The quantile regression was further used to analyze the heterogeneity of herdsmen of different NEI levels.The main conclusions are:1.Non-pastoral employment in the Tibet Autonomous Region still needs to be improved for although the average household NEI,the non-pastoral employment population（NEP）and the non-pastoral employment working hours（NEW）have shown an upward trend yearly,69.62% of NE workers work in the form of digging cordyceps and picking snow lotuses.Among them,the average household NEI increased from￥18,000 to ￥22,700 in 2015-2018,with an average annual growth rate of 7.99%,but43.95% of the NE workers had an annual income lower than ￥10,000.The average household NEP increased from 1.37 to 1.58 in 2015-2018 with an average annual growth rate of 4.65%,but only 6.19% of them were full-time.The average annual growth rate of NEW per household was 2.90% in 2015-2018,but the average total NEW per household was still only 0.45 year in 2018.2.In natural and material capital,animal-husbandry-related factors were still main inhibitors of NE,while joining agricultural and animal husbandry cooperatives can alleviate this problem to some extent.For every 100 sheep units reduction in livestock assets,the NEI will increase by 58.12%,but the proportion of it in the total income will increase by only 5.82%.For every grassland quality degradation,such as from high to medium,the NEI,NEIS and NEPS increased by 204.10%,8.37% and 7.05%respectively.Participation in cooperatives increased the household NEI and NEP by72.16% and 3.59% respectively,for it helped to form a larger-scale and intensive production pattern.Herdsmen can participate using grassland and livestock,which liberated surplus labor and thus promoted NE.3.The dependence of village cadre families on animal husbandry in social capital is gradually decreasing.Specifically,the NEI and the proportion of NEI in total income of village-cadre families were 411.37% and 29.51% higher than those of non-villagecadre families,and the more NEI,the stronger the impact of this indicator.On one hand,village cadre is a kind of NE itself;on the other hand,village cadres have wider access to NE information and opportunities,which benefits their family members by NE participation.4.For NE,a labor’s Chinese proficiency in human capital was more important than his/her health status and education level,and its impact became more prominent with NEI increase.The Chinese proficiency of the pastoral labor force was generally low,with 64.89% of them unable to understand or speak Chinese at all.However,the Chinese proficiency level is a key factor in communication and information acquisition in China,and the higher the Chinese proficiency,the more NE opportunities for herdsmen.In specific,if a Chinese-unable herdsman becomes Chinese-understandable,the NEI,the proportion of NEI in the total income and the proportion of NEP in the total population will increase by 71.45%,6.60% and 4.41% respectively.Based on the above conclusions,the following suggestions are proposed: 1)Under the premise of ecology protection,extend the industrial chains（digging cordyceps,picking snow lotuses,etc.）to achieve industrialization development;improve the guarantee system and the NE level;carry out employment training to broaden NE ways.2)Pay more attention to the cultivation and publicity of cooperatives,carry out NE skill training,and reduce herdsmen’s dependence on animal husbandry.3)Strengthen grassroots organizations in pastoral areas and give full play to the leadership and leading role of village cadres.4)Strengthen bilingual education in pastoral areas,carrying out Chinese popularization training classes. |
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