Poverty Alleviation Relocation, Fuelwood Consumption and Gender Differences in Human Capital Improvement

Yongtian Zhu; Shigemitsu Shibasaki; Rui Guan; Jin Yu

doi:10.3390/ijerph20021637

Poverty Alleviation Relocation, Fuelwood Consumption and Gender Differences in Human Capital Improvement

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 16;20(2):1637. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20021637.

Authors

Yongtian Zhu¹, Shigemitsu Shibasaki², Rui Guan³, Jin Yu¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China.
² Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan.
³ School of Politics and Public Administration, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China.

Abstract

The aim of poverty alleviation relocation is to break the vicious cycle of poverty and ecological degradation. The improvement of human capital, specifically women's human capital, is important to realize the poverty alleviation and sustainable development of relocated peasant households. Based on the survey data of 902 peasant households in southern Shaanxi in 2020, using the PSM model and the mediation effect test model, this paper explores the impact of participation in relocation on human capital from the perspective of gender differences, and the mediation effect of fuelwood consumption in the effect of participation in relocation on the human capital of peasants with different genders. The results show that firstly, in general, participation in relocation effectively improves the human capital of peasants. Secondly, there are gender differences in the improvement of the human capital of relocated peasants. Compared with male peasants, the health level of female peasants is significantly improved. Finally, fuelwood consumption plays an important mediation role in the impact of participation in relocation on human capital and the mediation role is more significant in improving the human capital of relocated female peasants.

Keywords: fuelwood consumption; gender differences; human capital; mediation effect; poverty alleviation relocation; propensity score matching (PSM).

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

China
Family Characteristics*
Female
Humans
Male
Poverty*
Sex Factors
Surveys and Questionnaires

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 72274157) and the China Scholarship Council (CSC, Grant No. 202106300047).