Basic characteristics of agricultural labor supply
The supply resources of agricultural labor force mainly come from rural population resources. The situation of population resources is mainly determined by the comprehensive situation of society, economy, culture and historical tradition. Compared with urban society, the comprehensive situation of rural society is very different, which makes the supply of agricultural labor force have its own obvious characteristics.
(1) The growth of agricultural labor supply has a strong economic driving force. Farmers are not only a living and consumption unit, but also a production and business unit. Farmers themselves are independent social and economic units integrating agricultural product reproduction and agricultural labor reproduction. In the period when the level of science and technology is relatively stable or slowly improving, farmers objectively need a larger family size to maintain the smooth progress of production and obtain higher economic benefits. Because, under the traditional level of agricultural productivity, which is dominated by animal power and manual labor, the economic benefits of farmers created by a simple agricultural labor force may be higher than those created by an educated and trained complex agricultural labor force. In this way, the expansion and reproduction of agriculture mainly depends on the means of promotion and reproduction, which in turn depends on the amount of simple agricultural labor. Therefore, farmers are willing to increase the input of simple agricultural labor by having more children, so as to expand the production scale of farmers and obtain more economic benefits. Therefore, the growth of agricultural labor supply has a strong driving force for economic development.
(2) The supply of agricultural labor is flexible. The supply resources of agricultural labor force mainly come from rural population resources, so the situation of rural population resources directly determines the supply resources of agricultural labor force. In rural population resources, the boundary between labor and non-labor is not obvious, and the boundary between agricultural labor and non-agricultural labor is not strict. First, in rural population resources, the elderly over 60 years old and children under 65,438+06 years old cannot be classified as agricultural labor supply resources from the legal point of view and economic theory. However, these two groups of people actively participate in agricultural labor in busy farming season and slack farming season, and the amount of labor provided by these two groups of people is quite large. Second, among farmers, those who have been engaged in non-agricultural labor for a long time come back to participate in farmers' agricultural production activities when agricultural production is busy. Thirdly, due to the complexity of farmers' housework and low degree of socialization, every farmer needs a relatively fixed member to do housework. Therefore, from this perspective, when the population of rural communities and urban communities is the same, the ratio of labor force to population supplied by rural communities is relatively low. Fourth, agricultural natural resources are more resilient to agricultural labor, unlike in non-agricultural industries, where there is a clear boundary between the amount of labor absorbed by funds and equipment. Just because the direct income and comparative income of agricultural production are low, farmers have not put all their time into agricultural production. For the above reasons, the supply of agricultural labor has great flexibility, or great flexibility.
(3) The total supply of agricultural labor is too large, but the effective supply is seriously insufficient. In traditional agriculture, which is dominated by animal power and hand tools, the productive labor skills of agricultural labor force are mainly obtained from productive labor practice. Therefore, ordinary farmers do not pay enough attention to their children's school education, which leads to the low overall quality of agricultural labor supply resources. With the development of social economy, the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture is accelerating, which requires agricultural labor force to have higher scientific and cultural quality. However, the agricultural labor force formed under the traditional agricultural production mode cannot meet the requirements of modern agriculture. In the process of the transformation from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture, there has been a socio-economic phenomenon that the supply resources of agricultural labor force are too large and the effective supply is seriously insufficient.
Determinants of agricultural labor supply
To study the supply of agricultural labor force, we must study the decisive factors that determine the supply of agricultural labor force and the status and role of each factor. The decisive factors of agricultural labor supply mainly include the rural population and its structure, the economic benefits of agricultural labor force, the quality of agricultural labor force and so on.
(1) The scale and composition of rural population directly determine the scale and composition of agricultural labor supply resources. Agricultural labor resources are basically composed of rural population resources suitable for labor, and rural population employment is mainly in the agricultural sector. Therefore, the scale of rural population resources is positively related to the scale of agricultural labor supply resources. The age composition of rural population has a more direct impact on the supply of agricultural labor force, and the population distribution of each age group of rural population determines the changing trend of agricultural labor force.
(2) The economic benefits of the agricultural sector determine the actual supply of agricultural labor. Labor is a means for people to make a living. In order to make a living and improve the quality of life, people prefer those industries with high labor remuneration to those with low labor remuneration. Therefore, the economic income level of agricultural sector labor determines the supply of agricultural labor.
(3) The quality of agricultural labor supply resources determines the effective supply of agricultural labor. The practice of social and economic development has proved that the most basic and important social productivity is people, and the most basic and important social and economic resources are labor resources, especially those with certain cultural knowledge and science and technology. With the improvement and popularization of agricultural science and technology and the upgrading of agricultural production tools, it is urgent to improve the quality of agricultural labor resources to meet the needs of modern agricultural science and technology progress and rural market economy development. In reality, the level of economy, culture, nutrition and education in rural areas is lower than that in cities. Therefore, the quality of agricultural labor supply resources is low and it is difficult to adapt to the requirements of agricultural market economy development. In the process of agricultural modernization, the rural school-age population with low physical quality and cultural quality has become an ineffective supply part of agricultural labor supply resources. In addition, the transfer of high-quality agricultural labor to non-agricultural industries has aggravated the insufficient effective supply of agricultural labor. Therefore, in the era of rapid development of science and technology, the quality of agricultural labor supply resources determines the effective supply of agricultural labor.
(4) The supply of agricultural labor time is also an important factor to determine the supply of agricultural labor. There are two sources of agricultural labor time supply: one is the sum of daily agricultural labor time and annual agricultural labor time of each agricultural labor force; The second is the time for non-agricultural labor to participate in agricultural labor during the busy farming season or at other times. Non-agricultural labor force includes the rural population who have not reached or exceeded the legal working age for agriculture, and also includes the rural population who are mainly engaged in non-agricultural industries in rural communities and participate in agricultural labor in busy farming seasons. The length of each working day and the number of working days in the whole year of agricultural labor force are limited by agricultural climate, agricultural labor objects, agricultural labor means, agricultural labor supply scale and national legal factors. Rural non-agricultural working-age population working in the agricultural sector is a manifestation of economic and cultural backwardness, but it is also the survival needs of poor and backward rural areas and should be overcome in the process of rural economic development. It is a normal economic phenomenon that the rural population mainly engaged in non-agricultural industrial labor participates in agricultural labor in busy farming season, which is a transitional period from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture and a process of rural urbanization and rural industrialization, indicating that the rural labor force is fully utilized and the economic development momentum is strong. With the further development of agricultural modernization, urbanization and industrialization, this phenomenon will gradually disappear.
(Huang Chuling, Chen Ruiling, Cai Junping. Introduction to agricultural economic management [M]. Guangzhou: South China Agricultural University Press, 1996: 187)