Research On The Impact Of Social Network On Farmers’ Livelihood Strategy Choice

Against the backdrop of accelerated urbanisation and marketisation,there has been a shift in the rural labour force to the non-farm sector and a shift in livelihoods from a’single livelihood’ to a ’diversified livelihood’.Non-farm production is an important way for farmers to increase their income and improve the resilience of their households to risks.Diversifying farmers’ livelihood strategies,diversifying their income sources and steadily increasing their endogenous motivation to increase their income is not only crucial for strengthening the economic base of farmers’ households,but also for achieving the important goal of rural revitalisation and common prosperity.Existing research shows that farmers’ livelihoods are becoming more and more part-time,and that social networks,as an important factor in all aspects of farmers’ production and life,can play a significant role in influencing the choice of livelihood strategies by affecting the proportion of people engaged in family farming and regulating farmers’ livelihoods.Therefore,this paper aims to clarify the specific effects and logic of the role of social networks in the choice of livelihood strategies of farming households,and to identify the key ways that have not been clarified in previous studies,with a view to optimising the choice of livelihood strategies of farming households and achieving the goal of rural revitalisation of "farmers’ wealth".This paper focuses on the hot issue of diversifying farmers’ livelihoods and increasing farmers’ income steadily.Using the social network theoretical framework and farmers’ behavioural theory,we use data from a study of 765 farmers in eight counties(cities)in Hubei in 2021 to explore the impact of social networks on farmers’ livelihood strategy choices.Firstly,based on the theoretical literature and the real-life background,the idea of this paper is clarified,based on which the relevant concepts are clarified and a theoretical analysis framework is established to provide theoretical support for the logic of the role of social networks in farmers’ livelihood strategy choice;secondly,descriptive statistics are conducted on the social networks and livelihood status in the sample area;finally,a multinomial logit choice model is used to examine the specific effects of social networks in farmers’ livelihood strategies Finally,a multinomial logit choice model is used to examine the specific effects of social networks in farmers’livelihood strategies,and a mediating mechanism analysis is used to verify the pathway of social networks indirectly influencing farmers’livelihood strategy choices through farmland transfer behaviour.The results found that:(1)social networks have a significant positive impact on farmers’ livelihood strategy choices,i.e.,social networks can effectively facilitate the shift from single farming livelihoods to diversified non-farming livelihoods;(2)A subdimensional discussion found that network size and reciprocity were the main ways in which social networks acted to diversify farmers’ livelihood choices,while network trust and interaction only contributed significantly to farmers’ choice of non-farmdominated livelihoods;(3)After adopting appropriate methods to address the endogeneity problem and conducting robustness tests by replacing core variables and replacing the PSM model,the regression results were found to be basically consistent with the baseline model,verifying the credibility of the results of this paper;(4)Heterogeneity analysis found that when the household head is female,farmers with stronger social networks are much more likely to choose non-farm livelihood strategies than those with male heads;((5)The mechanism test shows that social networks can indirectly influence farmers’ livelihood strategy choice through their farmland transfer behaviour,and the mediating effect of farmland outflow behaviour is significant,while farmland inflow neither promotes nor inhibits it,and there is no significant mediating effect.Based on the above findings,this paper proposes the following countermeasures:firstly,give full play to the normative role of social networks in the choice of farmers’ diversified livelihood strategies;secondly,accelerate the construction and promotion of market-based agricultural land transfer platforms;thirdly,pay attention to the construction of rural infrastructure,social security systems and cultural construction.