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.

摘要：作为提升农户自我发展能力的重要途径，非农就业在多国农户多维减贫进程中发挥着不可或缺的作用。本文基于对中国黄河流域五省份1926户农户开展的调研，考察了非农就业的多维减贫效应，以及非农就业在模式、水平、距离与频次四个维度上的异质性影响。研究结果显示：（1）尽管黄河流域收入维度的绝对贫困已基本消除，但社会资源、交通设施、就业保障层面的贫困仍是制约农户自我发展的关键瓶颈；（2）非农就业多维减贫效果最优的省份为陕西，其对就业保障维度的减贫贡献度最高；（3）提升非农就业水平、就业距离与就业时长可显著缓解农户的多维贫困。因此，为缓解黄河流域农户的多维贫困，需重点聚焦黄河中上游等多维重点贫困地区的治理，因地制宜推行非农就业多维减贫策略，补齐农户在社会资源、流动能力、就业保障方面的短板，并强化非农就业惠农益贫的作用效能。