Using panel data from China Rural Development Survey, with a nationally representative sample of 2000 rural households in 100 villages among 5 provinces, this paper explores the effect of human capital ( education) and political capital (whether a family has a member being local cadre) on off-farm employment for rural labor. The results indicate that education has significantly positive effect on off-farm employment and migration in 2004 -2015. Education especially promotes off-farm employment for females. Meanwhile, having village cadres within families increases the likelihood of off-farm employment for males, even though the effect has been gradually diminishing. Having cadre connection makes it more likely to engage in local off-farm work. Thus, government should keep adding resources into rural education as well as providing more employment information in these areas, therefore correcting information asymmetry and distortion of labor resource allocation in the rural labor market.

Keywords: human capital, political capital, off-farm employment, migration

Corresponding author: Linxiu Zhang, lxzhang.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cn