Off-farm employment and multidimensional poverty: empirical evidences from the Yellow River Basin in China

Abstract

As an essential way to enhance farmers’ self-development ability, off-farm employment plays an indispensable role in farmers’ multidimensional poverty reduction in many countries. Employing a survey of 1926 farmers in five provinces of the Yellow River Basin in China, this paper examined the multi-dimensional poverty reduction effect of off-farm employment and the heterogeneous influence of different dimensions of off-farm employment (modes, levels, distances and frequency). The results showed that (1) although absolute poverty in the income dimension was largely eliminated in the Yellow River Basin, the poverty in social resources, transportation facilities, employment security were the key bottlenecks restricting farmers’ self-development. (2) The province with the best multidimensional poverty reduction effect for non-farm employment was Shaanxi, with the largest contribution to employment security. (3) Improving off-farm employment level, distance and time can significantly alleviate the multi-dimensional poverty of farmers. Therefore, to lessen the multi-dimensional poverty of farmers in the Yellow River Basin, it is necessary to focus on the governance of multi-dimensional key poverty-stricken areas, such as the middle and upper courses of the Yellow River, adopting multidimensional poverty alleviation strategy of off-farm employment according to local conditions, working on the farmers’ deficiencies in social resources, mobility, employment security, and deepening the effect of off-farm employment on benefiting farmers and helping the poor.

Why Have China’s Poverty Eradication Policy Resulted in the Decline of Arable Land in Poverty-Stricken Areas?

“…Consequently, following the increase in per-unit grain production, farmers may emphasize land conservation and sustainability. They may implement measures to reduce soil erosion, unregulated expansion, and unsustainable land utilization, ensuring the land can maintain high productivity over the long term [50,51]. This shift can obviate the need for large-scale land expansion, enabling better management and conservation of existing land resources to ensure long-term agricultural sustainability.…”