Cause Analysis to Farmers’ No Removal from Immigrant of Voluntary Poverty Alleviation of in Shanxi Province and Policy Recommendations ()
Received 24 March 2016; accepted 22 April 2016; published 27 April 2016
1. Introduction
Voluntary poverty alleviation migration is a poverty alleviation project. On a voluntary basis, it aims to let the population migrate from the region with ecological environment of bad natural conditions to better region under the organization of the government [1] . To the farmers living in areas with poor environment, poverty alleviation projects have very big attraction, which makes a large number of poor farmers be out of poverty, and improves living conditions in recent years. But farmers need to raise some money in the immigration process, which makes the migration just belong to the wealthy [2] . There are some restrictions in poorer farmers, which makes some farmers still live in the origin place, and then causes the legacy of migrants. Dong Chong (2009) [3] analyzed the influence factors of the willingness of migrants left behind migrant village from two aspects of immigrant village characteristics and immigrant families. But the current domestic research on migration mainly focuses on the migrants adaptation, migration patterns and future development direction after the relocation, such as The risk of livelihood for poverty alleviation immigration, support resources to undertake and policy optimization by Zheng et al. [4] , Analysis of the mode of poverty alleviation and resettlement and empirical by Li and Jin [5] , and From different organizations to study the main point of view to study the relocation of poverty alleviation and migration model of Shanxi by Li and Zhang [6] . However, the papers on immigrant origin is not much, even if sometimes involved, it is only for the analysis of migration characteristics of groups to provide reference. Therefore, there hardly are some papers concerned on the social and economic of the original place [1] . The article studies left-behind families in voluntary relocation of poor immigrants by analyzing some cases. From the two aspects of government policy and the migrants themselves, the article further analyzes the reason why left behind families do not move out, analyzes the current state of left behind families’ life, then the author puts forward that it is necessary to carry out accurate helping for left-behind families, so that left-behind families can benefit from the relocation of poverty in the true sense and improve their living conditions.
2. Data Sources
The case of the text is from the National Social Science Fund Project “Study on Large-Scale Ecological Migration’s Sustainable Development in Poor Areas”, in which 28 questionnaires are given out the left-behind families in Shanxi Poverty Alleviation Voluntary Migration. All the questionnaires are all valid questionnaires.
3. Factors Influencing Voluntary Decision
In the voluntary poverty alleviation migration, Farmers are limited from all aspects of the conditions in the choice of moving or not, so different family make different decisions―a considerable number of richer farmers will choose to move into the placement, and relatively poor farmers choose to stay in the original residence. However, in addition to migrant own factors, there exist the government policy factors. The following analyses the reason why the left-behind farmer choose to move or not from two aspects.
3.1. Migrants’ Factors
Although migration will bring many benefits to farmers, it need farmers who input certain cost to move out in the actual process of relocation, and relatively poor farmers can’t afford so much and chose to stay in the original place of residence. These choices are decided by farmers’ ability to bear the costs of the move, and are in direct relationship with farmer owned capital. Generally speaking, farmers have capital includes four aspects: [7] material capital, human capital, social capital and environmental capital, which are analyzed one by one by case analysis as following.
3.1.1. Material Capital
Farmers’ material capital includes the farmers’ land, family property and economic income. Farmers, owning more material capital, choose to relocate, but owning lower income and less family property, they do not choose to relocate. The left-behind farmers make such a choice is mainly due to lack of material capital, and hardly bear the relocation costs. Making analysis combines with case 1 and case 2:
Case 1
Mr. Su: There are seven people in his family. He knows the migration news very early, and also always wants to move. Although the government provides loans, he has so many savings so he still cannot move. When asked which aspects of poverty alleviation migration policy need to be improved, his respond is to increase subsidies and loans to farmers. When asked what takes place after some people moved, the answer is because there are fewer people to exchange, the left people feel so lost psychologically.
Case 2
Mr. Yang: There are eight people in his family. He has built the new house in village just before the relocation message forth come, so he now has no money to move even he want to do. When asked about his hope, he said he want get more lands so that he can cultivate because he think it will be also a good way if he can be given more land to living in the village.
The case 1 and case 2 show that farmers choose not to move because they are unable to pay for the cost of the relocation. The analysis of the interview dates shows that the problem of roots is the famers have no savings and their household income is too little. Therefore, although the farmers want to move, flesh is weak.
3.1.2. Human Capital
Measure of human capital is the quantity and quality of the labor force and the quality of the labor force is measured from the physical labor and education, labor skills, experience etc. After famers move to the resettlement arrangement spot, in which production and economic development have a recovery period, there are changes in the quantity and quality of labor requirements. The shortage of human capital in the left-behind households is also one of the important reasons. Making analysis combines with case 3.
Case 3
Mr. Guo: There are six people in his family, and the head of the house are unemployed. He mainly relies on farming and working to support the family expenses. He has a total of four children―the eldest daughter, second daughter and son are in school, and younger son was 8 years old, so his family burden is very heavy. Although he also wants to move, after the relocation the expenditure is not little, and his family is in lack of labor force, so he is more hesitant. When asked what takes place after some people moved, his answer is there are fewer people to exchange.
In case 3, the labors of the rural household are only two people―husband and wife. Human capital of the family is mainly small and weak, which leads to lack of confidence in moving to a new place. The characteristics of poor farmers’ human capital are difficult to adapt to the agricultural production system of resettlement. The lack of human capital becomes the important reason for the farmer giving up the relocation.
3.1.3. Social Capital
Social capital is individual ability to mobilization of scarce resources in the network or broader social structure, namely, the resources of social relation network, rights, and organization, is possessed by the individual. From its function, it has the characteristics of production. In another words, it is to make certain purposes can be achieved, but without it, the purposes are not to achieve. Generally speaking, the features of social network include three aspects: 1) obtaining information. The flow of information is an important function of network. 2) The establishment of the trust. The benefits of social network are not only can help to obtain information, but to trust the information. 3) Access to resources. All kinds of valid relationship mean the ability to receive financial assistance then to solve difficult problems. Relocation costs is so high, so it is very difficult for the farmers to solve problems relying solely on their own strength, and it is very important and significant for them to obtain the effective financial support from the network of social relations. Generally speaking, the suspicion to repayment of poor farmers causes the lack of lending opportunities and ability.
Case 4
Mr. Liang: the old couple is left home. The head of home is mainly in agriculture, but he has a lot of physical problems. His wife gets leg fractured, and children works outside. He also gets registered about the relocation of poverty, and really want to take advantage of this opportunity to move out, but because he has no savings, and his son just borrow to buy a house in Yuncheng and no more money to help him. He wants to borrow some money from others, but nobody is willing to lend. Therefore, he does not afford the immigration of expenses. He hears that someone can loan from a bank, but he is too old to loan. When asked what takes place after some people moved, the answer is because there are fewer people to exchange, and he feels so lonely.
In this case, although the farmer wants to move, but he have no savings, besides, his relatives cannot help him out, nor social relationships can let him to raise money through the status change of relocation of life.
Case 5
Mr. Wang: His home has a total of five people. In addition to the son working in the county, the head of the household and his wife are famer in the village, and his daughter-in-law raises sheep in the village. His grandson was 8 years old in Buguan Township primary school. His home has some income. They live on a slope surface with better conditions, so he has no plans to move, and holds that it is the right choice not to move.
We can learn from the case that farmer believes that the current living situation is very good, and his family is satisfied with the present state of life. Even if some people have been moved, but they still do not think the move is the right choice. In term of the perspective of social capital, the family balance their social relations, taking into account the family are living in a village, only grandson in the school of township, overall income is enough, so they do not consider the relocation. From the case that social capital is an important factor to make the decision that they chose not to move.
3.2. Government Intervention
As a matter of principle in the voluntary migration as long as the migration registration, the government should provide the conditions for allowing its relocation, in order to reflect the immigration policy fairness and social equality. But in fact the government holds limited available allocation resources, and cannot meet the needs of every household, that is to say the overall resources are scarce. So the government will have some relocation costs when formulating immigration policy (which can be reflected in the above five cases). This process is actually on the immigration households to choose. In addition, the government may interfere with the relocation decision of farmers in the process of the implementation, such as case 6.
Case 6
Mr. Guo: there are three people in his family. The couple works outside, son still is school. His family always wants to move, but the government’s policy is not such a good that it can help them.
A few years ago, he save a little money to spend about one hundred thousand in the village built a new house. Now encountering such a good policy, everyone in village holds that this opportunity should be taken by the people who need it most rather than who has a new house, so they do not move.
In case 6, the farmer has the basic conditions for the relocation, but the village leader considers that the opportunity should be left the people who need it, so let the family to give up the relocation. The household also makes a combination of the opinions of the village leaders and the condition of themselves, and eventually moves the opportunity to those who need it, which is a more clear-cut case for the government intervention.
3.3. The Reason for No Migration
Through the analysis of the cases, the author can be summarized the factors that the farmers do not choose to relocate mainly, as the following aspects:
1. The left-behind households’ the accumulation of physical capital is not enough to bear the cost of relocation. It can be seen from the above case, the material capital is the main obstacle to the relocation of poor farmers. Lack of physical capital due to poor farmers have to give up the decision to move through rational trade-offs.
2. The shortage of human capital in left-behind households also a big obstacle that affects farmers to abandon relocation. Human capital is directly related to the stability and development after relocation, because migrants access to a new place to life and they need a period of time to adapt. If the human capital is relatively lack leading to farmers with no great expectations to life after the removal, it is possible for them to give up the relocation.
3. The social capital network of left-behind households does not provide the necessary support and help for farmers’ relocation. No some help of social relations will also affect the relocation decision of farmers.
4. The intervention of the government decision has great influence on the relocation of left-behind households. And this mainly affects farmers’ with medium or high conditions in wealth, because village leaders want to help the most in need of help farmers inside the villager.
4. Conclusions
In the process of voluntary poverty alleviation immigration, part of farmers are in realization of the relocation, but basically, they have better living conditions, have their own willingness to relocate and may afford for the cost of relocation. Thus, because of the poor conditions and special circumstances of the farmers, they are remained in the original country of residence, so big changes do not occur in their basic living conditions after the relocation of part of people in the community, but very big changes occur in the interpersonal aspects, that is to say some social situations of the left-behind farmers are not optimistic after farmers moved.
These highlighted problems in the process of voluntary poverty alleviation of immigrants reflect that the policy cannot really solve the difficult problem for farmers. This is the demand that the government put forward corresponding solutions to problems and obstacles that the left-behinds encounter, so that government can help needy farmers in the process of the relocation in the future, so that all farmers in the environment in areas with harsh living can enjoy the benefits of migration as much as possible, improve living conditions and raise the standard of living.
5. Discussion
The current voluntary poverty alleviation migration policy takes into account the capacity of most farmers in poor areas, but there are still some poor farmers who did not realize the relocation due to various reasons, which requires combining precise poverty of spirit on the basis of voluntary poverty alleviation migration, with in- depth analysis to reason of poverty and implementing specific poverty alleviation measures to the poor farmers who have been sure in poverty [8] .
Government can take aid measures to the left-behind households without desire to relocate according to the specific situation; through policy propaganda and ideological guidance, government helps the left-behind families with no too strong desire to relocate to know the advantage of poverty alleviation immigration policy in order to help them improve their living conditions; for the left-behind households who have difficulty in borrow money, government can help them to reduce the cost of relocation in many aspects, including increasing amount of free-interests loan and extending the repayment period. Besides, government can implement the multi pattern placement, such as helping the left-behinds who could borrow loan to achieve a smooth transition with low-cost rental to move into existing houses, optimizing the allocation of all kinds of poverty resources which is to make the poverty alleviation policy reach to every village and household [9] .
Precise poverty is also a poverty alleviation method which means that government should pay attention to poor villages and poor households’ special reality, and carry out poverty alleviation work based on respect to the actual situation of the local, which is better than the past method that attaches importance to the overall, but should not pay attention to the personality in the poverty alleviation work [10] . The government should be complemented by precise poverty based on the voluntary migration alleviation, to truly enable farmers out of poverty and live a comfortable life.
Fund Project
National Social Science Fund Project “Large-Scale Ecological Migration Sustainable Development in Poor Areas” (12BJL076), Shanxi Province Philosophy and Social Science Project “Poverty Migration Patterns Study in Shanxi”.