Influence of perceived value of rural labour in China on the labourers’ willingness to return to their hometown: the moderating effect of social support

ABSTRACT

China is vigorously implementing rural revitalization strategy, emphasizing the significance of human resources in the sustainable development of rural areas and agriculture. As China’s economy is entering a new normal stage, the growth rate of rural labourers’ income in cities is slowing down, and the gap between urban and rural net incomes is gradually closing. The labourers who have migrated are gradually showing the willingness to return to their hometowns for development. This study constructs a theoretical framework for the studying of rural labourers’ willingness to return to their hometowns. It finds that the perceived value of rural labour positively influences their willingness to return. Further perceived extrinsic–intrinsic benefits, perceived extrinsic costs, and their perceived values are all significantly and positively correlated. Moreover, formal support has a positive moderating effect between the perceived value of rural labour and willingness to return. The perceived value of rural labour increases with higher perceived benefits and lower perceived costs; the stronger the perceived benefits and perceived value of labour, the greater the willingness to return.

KEYWORDS:

• Rural labourers
• perceived value
• willingness to return
• social support

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the anonymous reviewers and editors.

Author contributions

Lei Wang contributed to the conception and model construction of the study and paper revision and improvement; Zhaoxin Zhang contributed to the questionnaire survey, empirical analysis, and manuscript writing.

Data availability statement

The data presented in this study are available upon request from the corresponding author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Institutional review board statement

The study was conducted by the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Ethics Committee of ***.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality: [grant no 19YF1437000]; Shanghai Academy of Educational Sciences: [grant no C2021064].