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Does road accessibility benefit rural poor? Evidence on the extent of household off-farm employment from 2004 to 2018

Does road accessibility benefit rural poor? Evidence on the extent of household off-farm... The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of infrastructure on the income growth and poverty reduction of rural household in China by estimating the impact of road accessibility on the extent of household off-farm employment and its heterogeneous effects among the groups with different income level and earning capacity.Design/methodology/approachUsing nationally representative panel data collected in 100 villages about 2000 households across five provinces in 2005, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019. This study adopts Tobit model with panel data, zero-inflated Poisson model and static nonbalanced panel model to yield consistent results.FindingsWe find that road accessibility generally has no effect on the number of off-farm laborers and duration of off-farm employment. However, road accessibility is not beneficial for the households in the low-income villages or with low educational attainment, but it benefits the households in the high-income villages by promoting local off-farm employment or with high educational attainment by increasing the duration of migrant off-farm employment.Originality/valueThis study identifies the heterogeneous effects of road accessibility on the extent of off-farm employment among rural households, which narrows the research gap and enriches the literature. The empirical findings imply that road accessibility widens the gap between rich and poor in off-farm employment, which is of great important to the alleviation of relative poverty after 2020 in China. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png China Agricultural Economic Review Emerald Publishing

Does road accessibility benefit rural poor? Evidence on the extent of household off-farm employment from 2004 to 2018

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References (66)

Publisher
Emerald Publishing
Copyright
© Emerald Publishing Limited
ISSN
1756-137X
DOI
10.1108/caer-06-2020-0150
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of infrastructure on the income growth and poverty reduction of rural household in China by estimating the impact of road accessibility on the extent of household off-farm employment and its heterogeneous effects among the groups with different income level and earning capacity.Design/methodology/approachUsing nationally representative panel data collected in 100 villages about 2000 households across five provinces in 2005, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2019. This study adopts Tobit model with panel data, zero-inflated Poisson model and static nonbalanced panel model to yield consistent results.FindingsWe find that road accessibility generally has no effect on the number of off-farm laborers and duration of off-farm employment. However, road accessibility is not beneficial for the households in the low-income villages or with low educational attainment, but it benefits the households in the high-income villages by promoting local off-farm employment or with high educational attainment by increasing the duration of migrant off-farm employment.Originality/valueThis study identifies the heterogeneous effects of road accessibility on the extent of off-farm employment among rural households, which narrows the research gap and enriches the literature. The empirical findings imply that road accessibility widens the gap between rich and poor in off-farm employment, which is of great important to the alleviation of relative poverty after 2020 in China.

Journal

China Agricultural Economic Review – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jul 27, 2021

Keywords: Road accessibility; Off-farm employment; Extent; Heterogeneous effects; Rural poverty; H41; H54; J21; J24

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