College of Economics and Management, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, China

Abstract　With the continuous deepening of reform and opening up, the gap between urban and rural areas continues to widen, and many farmers in rural areas have chosen to work in cities in order to get out of poverty. At the same time, in the context of the policy of precise poverty alleviation and rural rejuvenation, various helping and supporting measures for rural areas have also emerged. Supporting education in universities is one of the most important ones. With the Graduate Teaching Fellowship of Huazhong Agricultural University and the students and parents in the teaching sites as research objects, the impact of labor mobility and fixed-position supporting education in rural areas on rural families was explored in this paper using economics, sociology and other relevant theories and analytical methods. The results showed that labor mobility can promote the increase of rural household economic income. Outbound industries and regions have a major impact on the entire family development. However, the outflow of labor can also lead to various problems such as staying behind. The fixed-position supporting education in colleges and universities can, on the one hand, promote the improvement of the academic performance of the students in the teaching areas. On the other hand, it can help students develop good habits. Fixed-position supporting education of colleges and universities can be seen as a way to make up for the outflow of labor in rural areas. Combining the flow of labor force with the teaching support of colleges and universities can better promote the development of the entire family of farmers in rural areas.

Key words　Labor mobility, Rural families, Fixed-position supporting education, Behavior selection theory, Organic integration

1　Introduction

In the 40 years of reform and opening up, through the implementation of a series of policies, the rural poverty situation in China has changed a lot. However, the development of rural areas remains unbalanced and the family development of the households is still lagging behind. With the further expansion of the urban-rural income gap, the labor force in the rural areas has gone out in order to seek personal development and family affluence. At the same time, the government and all sectors of society are continuously helping the backward regions with a view to improving the situation in rural areas and promoting the development of local businesses, ultimately achieving the affluence of rural families. Based on the above background, it is of great theoretical and practical significance to explore the impact of labor mobility and the fix-position educational support of colleges and universities on rural families.

In theory, the research topic was mainly based on the three theoretical foundations of labor mobility, behavior selection and welfare economics. Starting from the practical value, the intrinsic role of rural household labor mobility for the families was analyzed, and the external influence of social external support for rural families in the case of fixed-position teaching in colleges and universities was explored in this article to systematically explore the development model of rural families. This is of great practical significance to promote the development of rural families and coordinating the balanced development of urban and rural areas.

2　Related concepts and literature review

2.1Relatedconcepts

2.1.1Labor mobility. Labor mobility refers to the movement of a workforce from one job or workplace to another jab or workplace. Sometimes, it also refers specifically to the movement of labor in the labor market[1]. It is an objective requirement for the acceleration of the development of the socialist market economy, industrialization and urbanization, and is also a necessary guarantee[2]. The labor mobility mentioned in this article mainly refers to the outflow of laborers in rural areas.

2.1.2Quasi-public product. Quasi-public product refers to a public product with limited non-competitive or limited non-excludability. It lies between pure public goods and private products such as education, crowded roads, and government-built parks. For the supply of quasi-public products, the principle of sharing the government and the market should be adopted in theory[3]. Quasi-public products have two major characteristics. First, they are non-exclusive and inadequate non-competitive. Second, they have non-competitive feature, but the non-exclusive is not adequate. The fixed-position education support mentioned in this article is a quasi-public product in fact[4].

2.1.3Graduate Teaching Fellowship of Benyu Volunteer Service Team. The Benyu volunteer service team of Huazhong Agricultural University is a voluntary service team named after the Chinese character Xu Benyu. It includes a large number of featured volunteer service organizations such as the Graduate Teaching Fellowship and Red Azalea Volunteer Club. The total number of members is as high as 1 200. The Graduate Teaching Fellowship is one of the core strengths of the volunteer service team. The support members mentioned in this article came from the Graduate Teaching Fellowship.

2.2Theoreticalbasis

2.2.1Labor mobility theory. Jorgenson believes that the reason for labor mobility is the inevitable change in the consumption structure rather than the increase in productivity. It is the result o the pulling of consumer demand. People’s demand for agricultural products is physiologically limited, but the demand for industrial product is endless. When agricultural production meets the needs of the population, the development of agriculture will lose the driving of demand, and the rural labor force and population will turn to demanding industrial sectors[5]. Todaro developed the theory of labor mobility among industries in developing countries. He believes that the mobility of labor depends on the difference in expected income[6].

2.2.2Behavior choice theory. The rational choice of behavior choice theory is an important part of the choice of behavior in economics. In the traditional economic theory, assumptions for economic people occupy a dominant position[7]. Adam Smith believes that human reason lies in his choosing the best interests of himself in the comparison of various interests, that is, to meet the greatest need of the self with the smallest sacrifice. Neoclassical economists have inherited and developed rational economists’ assumptions[8]. Their assumptions on human behavior include the following aspects: the individual’s action decisions are rational; individuals can obtain sufficient information about the surrounding environment; individuals conduct calculations and analyses based on all aspects of information obtained to choose a decision plan based on the goals that are most conducive to their own interests, thus achieving the greatest profit or utility[9].

2.2.3Welfare economics theory. Welfare economics is an economic theory system for the study of social and economic welfare. It was founded by British economists Hobbes and Pigou in the 1920s. Pigou put forward the concept of economic welfare in his masterpieces:TheEconomicsofWelfare,IndustryChangeTheoryandPublicFinanceResearch. Western economists conducted social assessment of the operation of the economic system from welfare perspective or maximization principle[10]. Western economists modified Pigou’s old welfare economics and developed new welfare economics. Representative figures include Pareto of Italy, and Lerner, Hotlin and Samuelson of the United States.

2.3Literaturereview

2.3.1Labor mobility and rural households. Some scholars believe that the flow of labor can promote the development of rural families. The outflow of labor enables the labor force to be liberated from agricultural production, and promotes the transfer of arable land and scale management of agricultural land[11]. This will help increase the efficiency of agricultural production throughout rural areas, achieve a more professional and modernized production technology, promote the rational allocation of agricultural production factors such as land resources, promote the development of local agriculture, and then improve the welfare of rural households. At the same time, labor mobility can effectively increase the income of labor services, and improve the level of development of the entire family through the direct or indirect effect of working income through remittances, sending back or bringing in money[12].

However, some scholars have found through research that labor mobility is not conducive to rural family development. As the labor productivity of outbound labors is usually high, the outflow of labor will lead to the absence of the main body of rural family development. Especially when out-migrants are young laborers, this negative effect is even more significant. From the perspective of impact of labor outflow on rural governance, foreign scholars concluded as early as the middle and late 20th century that the outflow of rural laborers will bring huge social costs, break the original social network in rural areas, and destroy the social order in the countryside, which will lead to the hollowing out of rural development, the re-copying of rural structure and the imbalance of social order in rural areas.

2.3.2Supporting education and rural households. In the world today, in order to solve the problem of unfair education, counties in the world have shown a trend of promoting balanced development of education. Under this background, the Teaching for the United States integrates various educational resources of society, strengthens management, expands influence, and has achieved rapid development. It allows children across the country, especially in poor communities, to have equal access to education, thus effectively promoting the development of rural families. Most of the areas taught by the university students are underdeveloped areas, where many of the students are vulnerable groups and failed to enjoy the same high-quality educational resources as students in economically developed areas.

In China, volunteer support activities of university students have been initiated since 1993 and have gradually developed today as an important part of national education. During the past 20 years, volunteer support activities of university students have developed from initial local areas and some university students into a national voluntary activity, which has accumulated rich experience and made gratifying result[13]. Fixed-position educational support of colleges and universities, as a special kind of volunteer service, is aims to help the development of education in more impoverished areas and drive the development of the whole family in countryside[14].

3　Research content and data sources

This article mainly adopted survey methods such as literature review and questionnaire survey. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, the data reviewed and obtained from field investigations were processed and analyzed to investigate the impact of labor mobility and fixed-position educational support of colleges and universities on rural families.

The study content included the follows. First, the impact of labor mobility on rural households was investigated through simple analysis of the situation of the primary students’ parents in the teaching areas. Second, the role of fixed-position teaching was studied separately from the aspects of support members and their influence of the teaching sites, on the basis of combining the history of supporting education. Finally, corresponding countermeasures and suggestions were proposed in response to the above findings.

The research object of this article included two parts, the parents of primary school students in the teaching sites and the members of the Graduate Teaching Fellowship. After field investigations in Bijie, Guizhou and Enshi, Hubei in July 2017, the first set of sample data was obtained. In the form of an electronic questionnaire, a questionnaire survey was conducted on the support members to obtain the second set of sample data. The contents of the first set of questionnaires mainly included basic information of parents of students, working outside the home, subjective feelings,etc. The contents of the second set of questionnaires mainly included the basic situation of the support members, the reasons for participating in the volunteer teaching, attitudes, behavior choices,etc. Total 300 questionnaires were recovered, 200 questionnaires for the first set and 100 questionnaires for the second set. After removing 4 invalid questionnaires, total 296 questionnaires were finally obtained, with recovery rate of 98.67%. The data were highly scientific, credible and representative.

4　Statistical analyses of samples

4.1SituationofstudentparentsinteachingsitesIn terms of nationality, 58.5% of the investigated parents belong to ethnic minorities, and the rest belong to the Han nationality (Table 1). Ethnic minorities predominated. The important reason for the phenomenon above is that the investigated areas are places where ethnic minorities live in and where the majority of the townships are ethnic minority townships. From the perspective of gender of the investigated parents, males accounted for 54.0%, and females accounted for 46.0%. The proportion of men and women in the sample was even.

As shown in Table 2, the families of which the parent(s) worked outside the counties but within the provinces accounted for 27.0%, and the parent(s) of the rest families all worked outside the provinces. The parents of the majority of the parents worked in Zhejiang, Guangdong and Fujian. From the perspective of industry engaged, 47.0% of the surveyed families were engaged in manufacturing industry, 31.0% of the families worked in the construction industry, and 13.0% of the families were devoted to the service industry. The areas where the students’ parents worked outside the home were relatively concentrated. One of the most likely reasons is that most families obtain working opportunities through fellow villagers. At the same time, the choice of working industry is subject to the level of personal academic qualifications. In addition, the manufacturing and construction industries can obtain relatively more income than the service industry, which is also an important consideration for parents when they go out to choose an industry.

As shown in Table 3, the monthly wages of 15.5% of the surveyed families were below 2 000 yuan, the monthly wages of 61.5% of the surveyed families ranged from 2 000 to 4 000 yuan, the monthly wages of 19.0% of the families ranged between 4 000-6 000 yuan, and the monthly wages of 4.0% of the families were above 6 000 yuan. The level of monthly wages for migrant workers was basically maintained at around 4 000 yuan.

Considering the subjective evaluation of the students’ parents, 59.0% of the families considered that going out to work had little negative effect on their children’s education, 19.0% of the families thought that the negative impact was great, and the rest families thought that the negative effect was normal. Among the surveyed families, 9.0% of them believed that the negative impact of going out to work on children’s personal growth was not significant, 58.0% of the households believed that the negative effect was large, and the rest thought that the negative effect was normal (Table 4).

When asked about their children’s education, more than half of the surveyed families thought that going out had little impact on their children’s education. The reasons might be as follows: the children were young, and the children were more sensible. Considering the impact on children’s academic performance, more than half of the families believed that going out to work was more detrimental to the development of children’s good personalities and habits.

Note: The data shown in the table were calculated and sorted out from the field survey data. The same as below.

Table 2　Regional and industrial characteristics of the migrant workers

Table 3　Wage income

Table 4　Subjective evaluation of the students’ parents

4.2Behaviorselectionofsupportmembers

4.2.1Development context of graduate teaching fellowship in Benyu volunteer service team. The gender ratio and professional background of the members of the Graduate Teaching Fellowship of Huazhong Agricultural University were summarized in the form of table (Table 5).

From 2003 to the present, 131 people have already joined in the Graduate Teaching Fellowship, including Xu Benyu, who went to Guizhou alone to support education from 2003 to 2005 and the 16 members who are going to teach in 2018. The total number of volunteer teachers has increased year by year. From 2003 to 2012, the total number of members of the Graduate Teaching Fellowship was generally increase by one or two people one year. Since 2013, the number of volunteer teachers has suddenly increased to 13, the concern on the Fellowship has increased, and the number of people recruited by the Fellowship has also increased. In terms of professional background of volunteer teachers during their undergraduate studies, among the 131 people, 78 people belong to humanities and social science majors, and 53 people belong to natural science majors. Overall, in the recruiting and selecting process of support members, the people engaged in humanities and social science majors account for a larger proportion. Before 2013, among members of each session, the difference between the numbers of volunteer teachers engaged in humanities and social science majors and natural science majors was basically not large. After 2013, the difference began to expand. In terms of gender ratio, the number of boys was basically greater than that of girls. In 2009-2010, 2011-2012, 2017-2018 and 2018 up to now, the number of girls was larger than that of boys. In 2017-2018, the difference between the numbers of boys and girls was large; while in the other sessions, the differences were not large. On the whole, the proportion of boys was larger. Most of the teaching sites belong to poor areas, and the natural environment is poor. In terms of emergency response and other capabilities, boys have advantages. For the sake of safety, during the recruitment process, boys are relatively more likely to be selected.

The recruitment of volunteer teachers of the previous sessions was a combination of many factors. This was also true in the selection of volunteer teachers for the Graduate Teaching Fellowship, which showed a certain tendency. The common point was that every session basically had some classmates who had served as university students. In the selection process, individual personality traits were also considered more or less to facilitate staff assignments later, so as to better complete the teaching work.

Table 5　Development context of the Graduate Teaching Fellowship

Note: The data shown in the table were from the statistical report of the Communist Youth League Committee of Huazhong Agricultural University on the Graduate Teaching Fellowship.

4.2.2Basic situation of 96 support members. Total 96 questionnaires were recovered from the 100 questionnaires. As shown in Table 6, among the 96 support members, boys accounted for 52.1%, and girls accounted for 47.9%. Among the boys, there were 12 only children, accounting for 24% of the total number of boys and 40% of the total number of only children. There were 32 people in rural households, accounting for 64% of the total number of boys and 50.8% of the total number of agricultural accounts. Among the girls, there were 18 only children, accounting for 39.1% of the total number of girls and 60% of the total number of only children. There were 31 people in rural households, accounting for 67.4% of the total number of girls and 49.2% of the total number of agricultural accounts. In short, there was not much difference between the proportions of boys and girls. Most of the support members are not only children and belong to rural households.

As shown in Table 7, 85.9% of the support members were really trying to contribute to the poverty-stricken rural areas. The people that chose Option B also accounted for a relatively large proportion. According to the economic man hypothesis of economics, people are selfish and will often consider the benefits they derives while choosing to do something, that is, the issue of opportunity cost. When college students choose to teach, the biggest gain they can give up during the period of teaching is the opportunity cost. Among the support members, 64.1% of them thought that they could exercise themselves and improve their ability through teaching. In other words, they believed that the improvement in individual ability gained from teaching would outweigh their pay. The gain of supporting education is intangible and cannot be measured by specific figures. However, everyone has their own criteria for judgement and everyone has different values[15].

The people that chose Option E accounted for 51.3%, relatively large. The college students who chose this option could rationally analyze their own environment and make corresponding actions. There are many ways to ease employment pressure, such as going abroad, continuing the study (postgraduate study), and supporting education. This kind of income is more measureable than the improvement of individual ability. In addition to ease the pressure on employment, the obtained practical experience at the grass-roots level will greatly benefit future employment.

As shown in Table 8, 48.96% of the support members believed that the phenomenon of choosing to support education for continuing the study is a matter of personal choice and is the decision made after subjectively measuring the pros and cons. With the continuous development of the times, economics is constantly developing. The economic man’s hypothesis maximizes the benefits. Up to now, some changes have occurred. More pursue the maximization of value to raise the welfare of the entire society[16]. This is a supplement to some theoretical flaws in economics. At the same time, 27.08% of the volunteer students thought that more emphasis was paid to continuing the study, instead of supporting education, that is, supporting education was just a way to continue further education.

As shown in Table 9, 85.9% of the volunteer teachers believed that supporting education is very helpful for the improvement of student achievements; 64.10% of them believed that supporting education will improve the students’ learning and living habits; 51.30% of the support members believed that supporting education will help to improve parents’ attitudes; 46.20% of the volunteer teachers believed that supporting education will contribute to the change in educational concepts of rural families; 12.8% of them believed that supporting education will ease the economic situation of rural families.

Table 6　Family background of the volunteer teachers

Note: The data shown in the table were sorted out from the electronic questionnaires. The same as below.

Table 7　Reasons about participating in the Graduate Teaching Fellowship

4.3WelfareanalysisofsupportingeducationbehaviorincollegesanduniversitiesSupporting education of colleges and universities is earliest an individual or group behavior. It motivation is mainly due to an ideal pursuit, a sense of moral responsibility and instant shock[17]. Even so, the act of supporting education of college students actually has positive external benefits[18]. Based on welfare economics, it can be clearly realized that supporting education of college students has provided a platform for the children in the mountains to engage with university students. As they learn the knowledge, they enrich their poor life. The welfare of local children is improved. Supporting education is not limited to teaching. Instead, it is also a process of self-learning and growth for the supporters themselves[19].

Table 8　Attitudes of volunteer teachers

Table 9　Subjective evaluation of volunteer teachers on the impact of supporting education on local rural families

Educational support will bring rich knowledge and wonderful life enlightenment to the children in rural areas. The Graduate Teaching Fellowship of Benyu Volunteer Service Team provided educational support to two impoverished schools in Guizhou in 2015. The initially tattered teaching environment has been replaced by neat buildings and relatively complete hardware facilities. These changes are obvious. At the same time, the initiative of the students who have been taught has been noticeably improved. In the past time, no one has been able to walk out of the mountains. This phenomenon has been changed. Although these changes are relatively small, in the long run, they will have a great impetus for the development of education in poverty-stricken areas.

At the same time, the welfare of the government has also increased. This is due to the fixed-position educational support for many years. The Fellowship and the local governments have also forged a profound friendship. For all the work of the Fellowship, the local governments will give strong support. Through the efforts of the two parts, educational support is really realized. The development of one or two schools drives the development of the neighboring schools. The partially obtained benefits are part of the overall benefits. Therefore, the governments also gain positive benefits that cannot be ignored.

5　Conclusions and discussions

5.1ConclusionsWith the members of Graduate Teaching Fellowship of Huazhong Agricultural University and the parents of the students in the teaching sites as research objects, questionnaire survey was carried out, and data processing and analysis was performed for the 296 recovered questionnaires. The following conclusions can be drawn.

(i) According to the theory of behavior choice and from the perspective of the maximization of benefits, supporting education is in fact a choice after weighing the pros and cons. After comparing the benefits that can be derived and the efforts that will be made, the final decision will be made. When it is profitable, students will choose to support education. This is why some of the members of the Fellowship choose to support education for obtaining the opportunity of continued study. However, the economic man’s hypothesis often has certain flaws in reality. It does not fully explain the problem. Therefore, from the perspective of maximizing value, college students are more concerned with the realization of personal value and the practice of social responsibility when facing choosing supporting education. From this point of view, support education will be chosen when there are values that can be increased. When it comes to the Graduate Teaching Fellowship, the motivation of supporting education is stronger than that of obtaining the opportunity for continued study. Based on the above two viewpoints, it can be concluded that the act of supporting education of college students is more concerned with value maximization.

(ii) From the perspective of welfare economics, the focus is on the benefits derived from the supporting education. After analyzing the behavior choices from the perspective of economics, the conclusion was reached that the value maximization is pursued. Welfare economics further supplemented this. The two theories support each other, which in turn emphasizes the positive significance of supporting education for the improvement of social welfare. Therefore, it was proposed that the supporting education behavior of university students is a quasi-public product.

(iii) Considering the impact of labor mobility and fixed-position educational support on rural families, labor mobility can bring economic income to rural families. Outbound industries and regions have a great influence on the entire family development. At the same time, it will also lead to various issues such as staying behind. The behavior choice of the support members has an important influence, and it contributes to the improvement of academic performance and development of good habits of students in rural areas. Supportive education represented by fixed-position education support in colleges and universities can be seen as a way to make up for the outflow of labor in rural areas. The organic combination of the two can better promote the development of farmer families in rural areas.

5.2SuggestionsBased on the above findings, the following three policy recommendations were put forward.

(i) The recruitment system of the teaching fellowship needs to be improved continuously to ensure its better development. This team has been developed from original one teacher Xu Benyu to 131 people today. In the fifteen years, the fellowship has been developed. Recruitment is for the whole school. As the fellowship grows, the number of teaching sites increases. If the willingness obtained from the interview process is not well-coordinated, contradictions will appear in the allocation of volunteer teachers. This will have a more or less impact on the next year’s recruitment work. Therefore, the improvement of the recruitment system to ensure that recruitment is more open, transparent and fair, is more conducive to the continued growth of this fellowship.

(ii) College students should start from themselves and pay attention to the cultivation of values. Supporting education of college students is a kind of quasi-public product. At the same time, more emphasis is placed on maximizing value when college students choose this behavior. Now, General Secretary Xi Jinping advocates that young people practice the 24-character socialist core values. College students should start from themselves and take up social responsibility with persevering belief, good character, excellent skills and rich knowledge. No matter life goes well or not, they must strengthen their conviction and regard it as the greatest value pursuit.

(iii) Local government should correctly guide peasant families to go out for employment. The possible social issues such as left-behind children should be fully taken into account. At the same time, the role of fixed-position educational support of colleges and universities should be fully displayed. Using social resources, the local education will be improved constantly. More skills training can be provided to local farmers, and their thinking needs to be guided correctly. The return of labor is encouraged to promote the endogenous development of rural families.