IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/chieco/v52y2018icp80-94.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Off-farm work, smartphone use and household income: Evidence from rural China

Author

Listed:
  • Ma, Wanglin
  • Renwick, Alan
  • Nie, Peng
  • Tang, Jianjun
  • Cai, Rong

Abstract

In theory, off-farm work, by raising household incomes, can have a direct impact on smartphone use among rural residents and the use of these smartphones in turn enhances incomes by facilitating online financial transactions, easing management tasks, strengthening social networks, providing technical services, and reducing exposure to risks. In light of this, this paper assesses the impact of participation in off-farm work on smartphone use, using an endogenous switching probit model and a survey of 493 rural households in China. The joint impacts of off-farm work participation and smartphone use on household income are also analyzed using a control function method. The results show that participation in off-farm work increases the probability of smartphone use significantly. Furthermore, we find that the household heads who engaged in off-farm activities and who were smartphone users earned 3430 Yuan and 2643 Yuan more per capita annual income, respectively, compared to their full-time farming and smartphone-free counterparts.

Suggested Citation

  • Ma, Wanglin & Renwick, Alan & Nie, Peng & Tang, Jianjun & Cai, Rong, 2018. "Off-farm work, smartphone use and household income: Evidence from rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 80-94.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:52:y:2018:i:c:p:80-94
    DOI: 10.1016/j.chieco.2018.06.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1043951X18300786
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.chieco.2018.06.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Taylor, J Edward & Rozelle, Scott & de Brauw, Alan, 2003. "Migration and Incomes in Source Communities: A New Economics of Migration Perspective from China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(1), pages 75-101, October.
    2. Julius Manda & Cornelis Gardebroek & Makaiko Khonje & Arega Alene & Munyaradzi Mutenje & Menale Kassie, 2016. "Determinants of child nutritional status in the eastern province of Zambia: the role of improved maize varieties," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 8(1), pages 239-253, February.
    3. Haruna Sekabira & Matin Qaim, 2017. "Mobile money, agricultural marketing, and off-farm income in Uganda," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 48(5), pages 597-611, September.
    4. Nong Zhu & Xubei Luo, 2010. "The impact of migration on rural poverty and inequality: a case study in China," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 41(2), pages 191-204, March.
    5. Janvry, Alain de & Sadoulet, Elisabeth, 2001. "Income Strategies Among Rural Households in Mexico: The Role of Off-farm Activities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 467-480, March.
    6. Jin Yang & Hui Wang & Songqing Jin & Kevin Chen & Jeffrey Riedinger & Chao Peng, 2016. "Migration, local off-farm employment, and agricultural production efficiency: evidence from China," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 45(3), pages 247-259, June.
    7. Yi Che, 2016. "Off-farm employments and land rental behavior: evidence from rural China," China Agricultural Economic Review, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 8(1), pages 37-54, February.
    8. Benjamin Davis & Paul Winters & Thomas Reardon & Kostas Stamoulis, 2009. "Rural nonfarm employment and farming: household‐level linkages," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(2), pages 119-123, March.
    9. Hübler, Michael & Hartje, Rebecca, 2016. "Are smartphones smart for economic development?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 130-133.
    10. Hübler, Michael, 2016. "Does Migration Support Technology Diffusion in Developing Countries?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 148-162.
    11. Jenny C. Aker & Isaac M. Mbiti, 2010. "Mobile Phones and Economic Development in Africa," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(3), pages 207-232, Summer.
    12. Hoang, Trung X. & Pham, Cong S. & Ulubaşoğlu, Mehmet A., 2014. "Non-Farm Activity, Household Expenditure, and Poverty Reduction in Rural Vietnam: 2002–2008," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 554-568.
    13. Fischer, Elisabeth & Qaim, Matin, 2012. "Linking Smallholders to Markets: Determinants and Impacts of Farmer Collective Action in Kenya," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(6), pages 1255-1268.
    14. Dedehouanou, Sènakpon Fidèle Ange & Araar, Abdelkrim & Ousseini, Aichatou & Harouna, Abdoulaziz Laouali & Jabir, Maimounata, 2018. "Spillovers from off-farm self-employment opportunities in rural Niger," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 428-442.
    15. E. Phimister & D. Roberts, 2006. "The Effect of Off-farm Work on the Intensity of Agricultural Production," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 34(4), pages 493-515, August.
    16. Dammert, Ana C. & Galdo, Jose & Galdo, Virgilio, 2013. "Digital labor-market intermediation and job expectations: Evidence from a field experiment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(1), pages 112-116.
    17. Wang, Xiaobing & Huang, Jikun & Rozelle, Scott, 2017. "Off-farm employment and agricultural specialization in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 155-165.
    18. Zereyesus, Yacob A. & Embaye, Weldensie T. & Tsiboe, Francis & Amanor-Boadu, Vincent, 2017. "Implications of Non-Farm Work to Vulnerability to Food Poverty-Recent Evidence From Northern Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 113-124.
    19. Kousar, Rakhshanda & Abdulai, Awudu, 2016. "Off-farm work, land tenancy contracts and investment in soil conservation measures in rural Pakistan," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 60(2), April.
    20. Ashok K. Mishra & Kh. A. Mottaleb & Samarendu Mohanty, 2015. "Impact of off-farm income on food expenditures in rural Bangladesh: an unconditional quantile regression approach," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 46(2), pages 139-148, March.
    21. Munyegera, Ggombe Kasim & Matsumoto, Tomoya, 2016. "Mobile Money, Remittances, and Household Welfare: Panel Evidence from Rural Uganda," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 127-137.
    22. Xiaobing Wang & Linghui Han & Jikun Huang & Linxiu Zhang & Scott Rozelle, 2016. "Gender and Off-farm Employment: Evidence from Rural China," China & World Economy, Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 24(3), pages 18-36, May.
    23. Rebecca Hartje & Michael Hübler, 2017. "Smartphones support smart labour," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(7), pages 467-471, April.
    24. Owusu, Victor & Abdulai, Awudu & Abdul-Rahman, Seini, 2011. "Non-farm work and food security among farm households in Northern Ghana," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 108-118, April.
    25. Wanglin Ma & Awudu Abdulai & Chunbo Ma, 2018. "The effects of off†farm work on fertilizer and pesticide expenditures in China," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 573-591, May.
    26. Chang, Hung-Hao & Mishra, Ashok, 2008. "Impact of off-farm labor supply on food expenditures of the farm household," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 657-664, December.
    27. Mary K. Mathenge & Melinda Smale & David Tschirley, 2015. "Off-farm Employment and Input Intensification among Smallholder Maize Farmers in Kenya," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(2), pages 519-536, June.
    28. Lisa Pfeiffer & Alejandro López‐Feldman & J. Edward Taylor, 2009. "Is off‐farm income reforming the farm? Evidence from Mexico," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 40(2), pages 125-138, March.
    29. Wanglin Ma & Awudu Abdulai & Renan Goetz, 2018. "Agricultural Cooperatives and Investment in Organic Soil Amendments and Chemical Fertilizer in China," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 100(2), pages 502-520.
    30. Ghimire, Raju & Huang, Wen-Chi & Shrestha, Rudra Bahadur, 2014. "Factors Affecting Nonfarm Income Diversification among Rural Farm Households in Central Nepal," International Journal of Agricultural Management and Development (IJAMAD), Iranian Association of Agricultural Economics, vol. 4(2), April.
    31. Musa Hasen Ahmed & Kumilachew Alamerie Melesse, 2018. "Impact of off-farm activities on technical efficiency: evidence from maize producers of eastern Ethiopia," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-15, December.
    32. Thomas Reardon & J. Edward Taylor & Kostas Stamoulis & Peter Lanjouw & Arsenio Balisacan, 2000. "Effects of Non‐Farm Employment on Rural Income Inequality in Developing Countries: An Investment Perspective," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 266-288, May.
    33. Michael Lokshin & Zurab Sajaia, 2011. "Impact of interventions on discrete outcomes: Maximum likelihood estimation of the binary choice models with binary endogenous regressors," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 11(3), pages 368-385, September.
    34. Minhui Zhou & Rachel Murphy & Ran Tao, 2014. "Effects of Parents' Migration on the Education of Children Left Behind in Rural China," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 40(2), pages 273-292, June.
    35. Su, Weiliang & Eriksson, Tor & Zhang, Linxiu & Bai, Yunli, 2016. "Off-farm employment and time allocation in on-farm work in rural China from gender perspective," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 34-45.
    36. Awudu Abdulai & Christopher L. Delgado, 1999. "Determinants of Nonfarm Earnings of Farm-Based Husbands and Wives in Northern Ghana," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 81(1), pages 117-130.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Renwick, A. & Ma, W. & Nie, P. & Tang, J., 2018. "The Joint Effects of Off-farm Work and Smartphone Use on Household Income in Rural China," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277304, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    2. Ma, Wanglin & Vatsa, Puneet & Zheng, Hongyun & Rahut, Dil Bahadur, 2022. "Nonfarm employment and consumption diversification in rural China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 582-598.
    3. Ma, Wanglin & Zhou, Xiaoshi & Renwick, Alan, 2019. "Impact of off-farm income on household energy expenditures in China: Implications for rural energy transition," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 248-258.
    4. Mondal, Ripon Kumar & Selvanathan, Eliyathamby A & Selvanathan, Saroja, 2020. "The impact of rural nonfarm employment on agricultural input use and productivity in Bangladesh," 2020 Conference (64th), February 12-14, 2020, Perth, Western Australia 305251, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    5. Ma, W. & Grafton, Q. & Renwick, A., 2018. "Gender and Income Effects of Smartphone Use: The Case of Rural China," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277310, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. M. J. Hossain & A. K. M. Abdullah Al-Amin, 2019. "Non-farm Income and Consumption Expenditures in Rural Bangladesh: Empirical Evidence from Multilevel Regression Modelling," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 17(2), pages 377-396, June.
    7. Wanglin Ma & R. Quentin Grafton & Alan Renwick, 2020. "Smartphone use and income growth in rural China: empirical results and policy implications," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 713-736, December.
    8. Paul Nkegbe & Abdelkrim Araar & Benjamin Abu & Yazidu Ustarz & Hamdiyah Alhassan & Edinam Dope Setsoafia & Shamsia Abdul-Wahab, 2018. "Rural Non-Farm Engagement and Agriculture Commercialization in Ghana: Complements or Competitors?," Working Papers PMMA 2018-07, PEP-PMMA.
    9. Mamoudou Ba & Amar Anwar & Mazhar Mughal, 2021. "Non‐farm employment and poverty reduction in Mauritania," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 490-514, April.
    10. Truong Lam Do & Trung Thanh Nguyen & Ulrike Grote, 2019. "Nonfarm employment and household food security: evidence from panel data for rural Cambodia," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 11(3), pages 703-718, June.
    11. Min, Shi & Liu, Min & Huang, Jikun, 2020. "Does the application of ICTs facilitate rural economic transformation in China? Empirical evidence from the use of smartphones among farmers," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    12. Zeeshan & Geetilaxmi Mohapatra & Arun Kumar Giri, 2022. "How Farm Household Spends Their Non-farm Incomes in Rural India? Evidence from Longitudinal Data," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(4), pages 1967-1996, August.
    13. Dzanku, Fred Mawunyo, 2019. "Food security in rural sub-Saharan Africa: Exploring the nexus between gender, geography and off-farm employment," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 26-43.
    14. Seidu, Ayuba & Onel, Gulcan & Moss, Charles B. & Seale, James L., 2016. "Do Off-farm Work and Remittances affect Food Consumption Patterns? Evidence from Albania," 2016 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Boston, Massachusetts 235851, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    15. Dedehouanou, Sènakpon Fidèle Ange & Araar, Abdelkrim & Ousseini, Aichatou & Harouna, Abdoulaziz Laouali & Jabir, Maimounata, 2018. "Spillovers from off-farm self-employment opportunities in rural Niger," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 428-442.
    16. Kehinde, Ayodeji Damilola, 2021. "The Distributional Impact of Non-Farm Income on Output and Farm Income of Cassava Farmers in Southwestern Nigeria," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315857, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    17. Rahman, Andaleeb, 2018. "Does off-farm income affect food security? Evidence from India," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 273882, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    18. Matsuura,Masanori & Md Saiful Islam,Abu Hayat & Tauseef,Salauddin, 2023. "Mobile phone ownership, income diversification, and household welfare in rural Bangladesh," IDE Discussion Papers 875, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    19. Ma, Wanglin & Qiu, Huanguang & Fan, Yubing & Zhou, Xiaoshi, 2020. "The joint effects of ICT adoption and access to credit on household income in China," 2020 Annual Meeting, July 26-28, Kansas City, Missouri 304431, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Dsouza, Alwin & Mishra, Ashok K. & Tripathi, Amarnath, 2018. "Improving Diet Quality through Off-Farm Work: Empirical Evidence from India," 2018 Annual Meeting, August 5-7, Washington, D.C. 274494, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Off-farm work; Smartphone use; Household income; Endogenous switching probit; Control function method;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • J22 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Time Allocation and Labor Supply
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:chieco:v:52:y:2018:i:c:p:80-94. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chieco .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.