THE IMPACT OF RELATIVE INCOME ON FARMERS' PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND ANXIETY INHIBITION: EVIDENCE FROM CHINA
Authors: Wang Wenxia , Ma Hengyun , Wang Huan 
Published: July 2022

Background

In 2017, China put forward the Rural Revitalization Strategy. Its purpose is to make agriculture a promising industry, make groups an attractive career, and make rural areas a beautiful home for living and working in peace and contentment. The most important thing is to increase the income of the group and realize their psychological satisfaction. With the development of economy, the change of relative income has a certain impact on group psychology, which has gradually become a research hotspot in recent years. However, the relative income is compared with the income of the reference group. Compared with the control group, the effect of relative income on group psychological anxiety and depression may be different.

Research Objects and Methods

Based on the micro survey data of CFPS 2018 of Peking University, this paper analyzes the impact of relative income on group psychological capital and its mechanism by using 7581 samples from 29 provinces and various measurement methods such as ordinary least squares regression Ordered probability regression, quartile regression and regulatory effect regression. Psychological capital shows happiness, self-confidence and life satisfaction. Relative income is expressed by self-assessment of individual income level of local groups. Relative returns can also be expressed by comparing the results up or down. In order to test the influence of psychological capital on group anxiety and depression, the psychological capital scale adopts the simplified version of depression scale (GDS-15). GDS-15 is designed on the basis of the standard version of group Depression Scale (GDS). Because of its simplicity and easy operation, GDS-15 is more suitable for application in groups. The results of Tang Dan's study show that GDS-15 has good reliability and discriminant validity, and is suitable for the measurement of depressive symptoms in Chinese population. There are 15 questions in the scale. The respondents choose “yes“ or “no” to answer, “yes” is “1” and “no” is “0”, with a total score of 15. The higher the score of depression is, the higher the score of depression is, ~ 0 indicates that depression is normal. The scale Cronbach's α 0.79, the 1-week test-retest reliability was 0.73.

Results

The empirical results show that relative income and absolute income have a positive impact on group psychological capital. The impact of absolute income is significantly higher than that of absolute income. Different relative income measures have different effects on psychological capital. The impact of relative income downward comparison is greater than that of upward comparison. With the higher and higher development level of psychological capital, the impact of relative income on psychological capital gradually weakens or even disappears, and the marginal impact of relative income shows a downward trend. Further research found that engaging in non-agricultural work will enhance the impact of relative income on group psychological capital. Through the research, we found that the groups with higher levels of psychological capital have lower levels of anxiety and depression. Therefore, we can think that groups with high internal psychological capital can alleviate the psychological pressure, anxiety and depression brought by psychological capital to a great extent through their own psychological quality. We also found that relatively speaking, farmers with high individual psychological capital are less affected by family factors, work and life, traffic safety, their own health and future fear, and farmers with high psychological capital will deal with the impact of family factors. The relevant data are as follows: after controlling demographic variables, the scores of depression and anxiety in different characteristic groups were compared. The age of 514 cases was 60 ~ 90 years, with an average of (68.5 ± 7.3) years; There were 251 males (48.8%) and 363 females (51.2%). There were 136 cases of depression (26.4%) and 51 cases of anxiety (9.9%). There was no significant difference in depression scores between different gender groups (P &gt; 0.05); There were significant differences in depression scores among different groups in terms of age, education level, number of chronic diseases, original occupation, number of good friends, relationship with family, average monthly income and physical health (P &lt; 0.05). There was no significant difference in anxiety scores between groups with different original occupations and the number of good friends (P &gt; 0.05); There were significant differences in group anxiety scores among different gender, age, education level, number of chronic diseases, relationship with family, average monthly income and physical health.

Conclusion

Relative income has a greater impact on psychological capital than absolute income. Groups are more willing to compare personal income downward and are easier to obtain psychological satisfaction. Therefore, attention should be paid to improving the relative income of groups. However, the evaluation of relative income is subjective and must be based on the stability of absolute income. The rural policy formulated by the government should aim at achieving the happiness and satisfaction of the group. Ensuring the continuous improvement of relative income of groups, helping low-income groups, building harmonious rural relations and creating non-agricultural employment opportunities can effectively improve group psychological satisfaction and achieve the strategic goal of Rural Revitalization. Because the evaluation of relative income is subjective, it must be based on the stability of absolute income. The grasp of the relationship between the two concepts needs to be further studied.

Acknowledgements

Supported by a project grant from the Project of Humanities and Social Sciences Research of Chinese Ministry of Education (Grant No.18JF206).