Abstract:

Agricultural population is one of the important bases of agricultural development in Sichuan Province. Finding out the key driving factors for the change of the primary industry employees in Sichuan Province has practical significance for the formulation of regional policies. Based on this, the paper selected 25 potential driving factors from eight aspects of employment structure, economic development level, medical and education resources, agricultural science and technology progress, population quality, migration cost, spatial location and farming conditions. Using population measurement method, stepwise regression analysis method and structural equation model, the paper analyzed the change characteristics of the number of employees in the primary industry and the driving factors affecting the change with a total of 21 cities in five economic zones in Sichuan Province from 1999 to 2008 and from 2008 to 2018 as the research objects. The results showed that, (1) from 1999 to 2018, the primary industry employees in 80.95 % of cities (prefectures) continued to decrease, and the primary industry employees in 9.52 % of cities (prefectures) continued to decrease after an increase; (2) the change of employees in the primary industry from 1999 to 2018 was closely related to terrain; (3) in addition to terrain, the main driving factors from 1999 to 2008 included the change of population birth rate, the number of middle school students and the output value of the primary, secondary and tertiary industry; the active driving factors from 2008 to 2018 also included housing price and agricultural mechanization level; (4) in 1999-2008, the impact of regional average slope on the annual gradient rate of the primary industry employees was mainly through the indirect effect on the annual gradient of secondary school students and birth rate, but the direct effect could not be ignored; (5) in 2008-2018, the annual change rate of agricultural motor number had a direct and effective impact on the annual change rate of employees in the primary industry, the promotion and application of agricultural machinery could promote more people to engage in the production of the primary industry. The above research results suggest that the internal mechanism of the loss of agricultural labor has obvious time differentiation. At present, although the regional differentiation of agricultural labor force is obvious, the direct effect of agricultural science and technology has been further highlighted, and it is expected to rely on agricultural science and technology to break the regional differentiation law of employees in the primary industry in the future.

Key words: economic zone, rural labor force, relief degree of land surface, agricultural industrialization, population movement, human capital investment