Abstract:

Objective: In the late stage of the collective forest tenure reform, the improvement of the forest allocation efficiency encountered new problems, and the existing research results and the practical exploration did not provide effective answers. At the same time, the change of the external environment promotes the increase of non-farm employment of farmers, the opportunity cost of forestry investment increases. This paper mainly explores the relationship between non-farm employment and the forestry production division, and provides policy references for accelerating the construction of the forestry production division system and effectively promoting the development of the forestry specialization, and enriches studies on forestry division theory. Method: Firstly, we divide the influence of the non-farm employment on the farmers' decision into the substitution effect and the income effect. Based on the theoretical basis, we analyze the influence of the non-farm employment on the farmers' forestry production division. Secondly, we use farmers' data from Fujian province and select the binary Probit model to verify the significant relationship between the two. Thirdly, we select the tool variable of "does the village people have the habit of going out to work?" and use the Ⅳ-Probit model to solve the endogenous problem. At the last, the robustness test is carried out by replacing the key variable "non-farm employment income" with "non-farm employment number". Result: The empirical analysis of Ⅳ-Probit model showed that: at the significance level of 1%, the non-farm employment income of farmers and the non-farm labor force who does not live at home both have significant positive impact on the division of the forestry production. Firstly, the more non-farm employment income farmers have, the less capital constraint they have to participate in the division of the forestry production, the more obvious the substitution effect. Secondly, the non-farm employment farmer who does not live at home has a higher opportunity cost of the forestry production, they are more likely to choose the division service. At the same time, at the significance level of 10%, the proportion of surrounding farmers participating in the division of labor and the level of family income in the village have significant impact on the division of labor in the forestry production. In addition, the robustness analysis shows that the above results are stable. Conclusion: 1) The non-farm employment of farmers has a role in promoting the division of labor in the forestry production. With social and economic development, the income of the non-farm employment and the number of non-farm employment labors who do not live in their homes will increase. It is the future trend of the further deepening the development of the division of labor in the forestry production. 2) The higher the proportion of farmers involved in the division of labor, the lower the transaction cost of the division of labor in the forestry production, and the more likely farmers are to participate in the division of labor in the forestry production. Therefore, it is necessary to strive to construct the service system of the forestry production division of labor, build an information platform of the forestry production division service, establish a mechanism of multi-sectoral integration and formulate forestry policies with multiple departments to promote the development of the forestry division of labor steadily and orderly.

Key words: non-farm employment, division of the forestry production, the substitution effect, the income effect