Lei Yuan

Revitalizing idle rural residential bases is essential for improving the utilization rate of residential resources, activating pastoral land resources assets, increasing farmers’ property income, and stimulating rural development vitality. Social capital is one of the essential social resources owned by farmers, which is closely related to rural social governance and farmers’ daily lives and plays an indispensable role in revitalizing residential land. Based on the theory of social capital and the survey data of 316 farm households in Shaanxi Province in 2022, this study first empirically analyzes the influencing factors of social capital and its constituent dimensions on farm households’ willingness to revitalize their home-steads using a Logit regression model, and then empirically analyzes the hierarchical structure relationship among the influencing factors using an ISM model. The results of the study show that: (1) Social capital and its three constituent dimensions of social network (“Contact with relatives, neighbors, and families” and “Contact with village committee staff”), social trust (“Trust in friends and relatives” and “Trust in village committee and other organizations”), and social participation (“Participation in meetings of village committees and other organizations”) have significant positive effects on farmers’ willingness to revitalize their residential land. (2) There are differences in the effects of different dimensions of social capital on farmers’ willingness to revitalize their homesteads: social trust as a deep-seated cause affects farmers’ social networks and social participation, which in turn affects farmers’ knowledge of homestead revitalization policies and ultimately farmers’ willingness to revitalize their homesteads. Based on the findings of the study, to improve farmers’ willingness to revitalize their homestead bases, government departments should base their efforts on the social capital characteristics of farmers, increase the cultivation of farmers’ social capital, and strengthen the publicity of the work of revitalizing homestead bases and related policies.

Under the dual structure of urban and rural lands, revitalizing rural idle homesteads is an effective measure for reducing resource waste and improving the efficiency of rural land use. Therefore, the intention of farmers, as the primary decision-makers in revitalizing rural idle homesteads, is the key to the success of revitalizing idle homesteads. With an analytical framework based on the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study used multiple linear regressions to analyze the survey data (N = 680). The results showed that attitude toward the behavior (AB), subjective norms (SN), and perceived behavioral control (PBC) had significant positive effects on the farmers’ intention to revitalize, with SN, PBC, and AB in descending order of influence. It confirmed that the TPB applies to the study of farmers’ intention to revitalize idle homesteads in the context of China. In addition, this study focused on the social phenomenon of farmer differentiation, which is prominent in the urbanization process. It emphasizes the moderating effect of farmer differentiation on the relationships of “attitude toward the behavior–intention to revitalize,” “subjective norm–intention to revitalize,” and “perceived behavioral control–intention to revitalize,” and further improves TPB. The present empirical study using hierarchical regression found that the deeper the differentiation of farmers, the stronger the effective influence of AB, SN, and PBC on farmers’ intention to revitalize idle homesteads. Therefore, it is suggested that the Chinese government should enhance farmers’ intention to revitalize by cultivating a positive attitude toward the behavior, strengthening the positive influence of subjective norms on farmers, and enhancing farmers perceived behavioral control. Furthermore, it is more important to pay full attention to the phenomenon of farmer differentiation and design a revitalization policy according to the differences in sensitivity of different types of farmers to attitudes toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control.