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Digital ability can increase job-searching efficiency of labour. However, the impact of digital ability on employment adequacy in rural households in China has not received sufficient attention. Using survey data from 1,953 rural households in China, this study analyzes labour participation and working time as indicators of employment adequacy. Item response theory was used to construct digital ability indicators, while conditional mixed process, IV-Probit, and IV-Tobit models were used for empirical estimation. After controlling for endogeneity, the results show that: 1) digital ability has a positive impact on labour participation rate and total working time; 2) digital ability has a positive effect on non-agricultural participation and working time, but negative effect on agricultural participation and production time; 3) the promotion effect of digital ability on working time is more obvious in households with high dependency ratio and low income; 4) both overtime work and underemployment co-exist among rural households. These results provide evidence that digital ability promotes employment adequacy and off-farm transfer of rural labour. Policymakers should consider improving the digital ability of rural households, especially those with high dependency burdens and low incomes. An in-depth discussion of digital ability should be undertaken in further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, most work was done online, the role of information literacy in influencing rural labour employment is worth investigating. Using survey data from 3,225 rural labourers in China, this study builds Item Response Theory and Tobit models, and finds that the pandemic hinders rural labour employment; however, information literacy promotes it and can mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic. We provide evidence for the positive role of information literacy, and policymakers should consider improving the information literacy of the rural labourers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural digitalization has become a key part of modernization in China. However, this rural digitalization follows a top‐down approach, from government guidance to private construction. Rural households' digital abilities have not received sufficient attention. This study explores rural households' digital abilities and their impact on production efficiency. One thousand eight hundred and seventy households are grouped into digital households (who have access to both digital and traditional channels) and traditional households (who only access traditional channels) based on their access to information channels for comparative analysis. The two‐parameter item response theory is applied to measure digital ability; stochastic frontier models are constructed to test the impact of digital ability on production efficiency; and a stochastic meta‐frontier approach is used to compare the efficiency between groups. The results indicate that: (1) digital households have stronger digital abilities than traditional households. (2) Digital ability is positively correlated with production efficiency. This effect is most evident among traditional households, followed by social households (digital households who use more social channels than nonsocial channels), and finally, nonsocial households (digital households who use more nonsocial channels). (3) Human capital (education, health, and skills) of laborers, off‐farm work, and village internet infrastructure all promote efficiency significantly. Research findings can help policymakers formulate targeted interventions to improve rural households' livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study built mediation analysis models to test the hypothesis that a moral hazard-measured as whether harvest operators' work attitudes are serious-mediates the effects of mechanical harvest outsourcing on rice harvest losses based on a 1106-household survey in China. The major findings are as follows. First, the average rice harvest loss rate in 2016 in China was approximately 3.65%, equalling eight million tons of rice or one million hectares of farmland. Second, after addressing the potential endogeneity, we preliminarily found the mediation effect using the three-step method. The adjusted product of coefficients method from the Sobel test, distribution of the product test, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo test all indicated the significance of the mediation effect arising from work attitudes. Third, we observed the mediation effect through moral hazard for large-scale farmers, but not when farmers used combine harvesters. These results supported the presence of a moral hazard in mechanical harvest outsourcing and showed that combine harvesting could facilitate harvest loss reduction. Policymakers should consider regulating the principal – agent relationship in harvest outsourcing and encourage land transfers to form large-scale farms to promote combine harvesting. These are critical in achieving the sustainable development goal of halving food loss and waste worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]