The changes of farmers’ livelihood strategies and the influencing factors from the perspective of the livelihood capital: Based on the four periods of the CFPS tracking data

Farmers’ livelihood strategies are changing and these changes will continue in the process of rural revitalization. Understanding the change of farmers’ livelihood strategies is critical to effectively guide farmers’ livelihood behaviors and to break the resistance of rural construction. Based on the four periods of the CFPS tracking data and the sustainable livelihood theory, and applying the transition probability matrix and the logit regression model, this paper analyzed the changes of farmers’ livelihood strategies and its influencing factors, and examined its robustness by the quantile regression method. Results show that a big difference exists among the livelihood capital structures of farmers with different types of livelihood strategies. Among the five types of capitals, human capital is the largest, no matter what kind of livelihood strategy is. Most farmers choose to maintain the original livelihood strategy in the short term with slow dynamic adjustment. Farmers with land transfer tend to adopt a livelihood strategy of no off-farm employment. Social capital, accompanied by farmers’ years of schooling and health status, has a significant positive impact on farmers’ adoption of opt for off-farm employment strategy. Compared with farmers in the eastern region, farmers in the central and western regions are more inclined to adopt the work-oriented livelihood strategy. Therefore, the government should increase the investment in diversifying rural industries to promote the speed of transformation of farmers’ strategies and encourage farmers to participate in land transfer. In addition, to promote farmers’ social capital accumulation, the government should establish and improve farmers’ participation in rural grassroots social governance mechanism and expand the investment in rural education and medical care systems.