Does rural talent cultivation enhance farmers’ social capital? Evidence from the ‘One Village, One University Student’ project

Using the One Village, One University Student (OVOUS) project as an example and drawing on survey data from 2,552 farmers in 12 counties (county-level cities/districts) in Jiangxi Province, China, this study employs an endogenous switching probit (ESP) model to empirically examine whether participation in rural revitalization talent-training programs enhances farmers’ social capital. The results show that: (1) participation significantly increases farmers’ bonding social capital by 6.8 percentage points (ATT = 0.068, SE = 0.002), suggesting that systematic education not only strengthens individual capabilities but also facilitates the expansion of social networks; (2) correspondence education yields a stronger social-capital-promoting effect than distance education, with estimated effects of 8.1 and 5.8 percentage points, respectively, highlighting the potential role of face-to-face interaction and repeated social engagement in enhancing farmers’ bonding social capital; and (3) older farmers experience slightly larger gains in bonding social capital than younger farmers (10.8 versus 10.5 percentage points), and female farmers experience substantially larger gains than male farmers (12.8 versus 5.1 percentage points), indicating stronger marginal returns among groups with relatively weaker social networks. Overall, the findings reveal that rural talent policies generate important spillover value by fostering social capital accumulation. This implies that future policy design should jointly consider the dual effects on human capital and social capital and, in light of group heterogeneity, improve the matching mechanisms between training modalities and target participants to enhance policy precision and overall effectiveness.