STUDY ON THE FORMATION MECHANISM OF LAND RENT ECONOMY AND FARMERS' “DE URBANIZATION” BASED ON THE CHANGE OF EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR
Authors: Liu Lijuan 
Published: July 2022

Objective

From the perspective of social emotional behavior analysis in social psychology, this paper discusses which land development mode can better promote the urbanization in China through the analysis of the formation mechanism of the “Deurbanization” of farmers in the core rural areas of the Pearl River Delta and the emotional behavior of survey data.

Method

The paper adopts a qualitative method. Based on the field investigation of Village Q, Dongguan City, China, the paper conducts semi-structured in-depth interviews with the incumbent leaders of the village party branch and village committee, officers, retired cadres, group leaders, members of the supervisory committee, local villagers, factory owners, migrant workers, etc., and deeply discussed the emotional behavior changes of various roles under several land development modes.

Findings

It is found that the core rural areas of the Pearl River Delta represented by Village Q are based on the development of collective lands, and the use of collective non-agricultural construction land has promoted the local industrialization and urbanization, and has driven the rapid development of local economy. As the members of collective economy, the farmers indeed enjoy the value-added benefits brought by the non-agricultural use of land, but in practice, the granting of land rights makes the local farmers show a weak market competition and de-laboring “Deurbanization” in terms of values and behaviors.

Conclusion

Human psychology is the product of social construction. The formation of “Deurbanization” of farmers in Pearl River Delta is closely related to the land system in this area. Through the analysis of the formation mechanism of the “Deurbanization” of farmers in the core rural areas of the Pearl River Delta and the emotional behavior of survey data, it is found that empowering farmers land rights does not necessarily promote the transformation of farmers into modern citizens. On the contrary, it may make the farmers who happen to occupy specific areas become land rentiers, thus resulting in excessive dependence on the economic benefits of land rent and unable to transform into the real modern citizens. Therefore, the main part of value-added income from non-agricultural use of farmland should still be owned by the government in the form of land finance, so as to promote urban economic development and fair distribution of social wealth, and to truly promote the urbanization of farmers. From the angle of human urbanization, the land system should adhere to the constitutional order of land public ownership. That is to say, through strict urban planning and land acquisition system, the government shall own the increase in value-added income from non-agricultural use of land. Because only the main part of value-added income of non-agricultural use of agricultural land belongs to the government in the form of land finance, can it promote the urban economic development and the fair distribution of social wealth.

Acknowledgement

The paper is the achievement of “Spatial Sociology of Urban-Rural Integration in China”(20&ZD149) supported by the National Social Science Fund and “Research on Community Governance Strategy of ‘from Villagers to Urban Residents’ from the Perspective of Spatial Production”( Project No.: 2019ZZTS003) of the 2019 Hunan Provincial Postgraduate Project of Independent Exploration.