ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Food Syst.
Sec. Social Movements, Institutions and Governance
How Does the Rural Collective Economy Enhance the Farmers' Sense of Spiritual Gain—Micro-Level Evidence from Cultural and Public Service Functions
Provisionally accepted
- 1Nanxun Academy of Innovation, Zhejiang University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhejiang Water Conservancy and Hydropower College, Hangzhou, China
- 2School of Economics and Management, China Jiliang University, Hangzhou, China
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In the process of modernization, enhancing the farmers' well-being, in particular, their subjective well-being, has become a key policy goal for the Chinese government. The rural collective economy, characterized by public ownership and cooperative structures, plays a crucial role in fostering farmers' sense of spiritual gain. Drawing on survey data from 44 villages in Zhejiang Province, China, this study systematically examines how the rural collective economic development influences farmers' sense of spiritual gain. The benchmark regression results indicate that the development of the rural collective economy, as well as their cultural function and public service function, significantly improve farmers' sense of spiritual gain. Furthermore, a series of robustness tests using alternative estimation approaches confirm the reliability and stability of these findings. Additionally, considering the heterogeneity of operation modes, the results reveal that compared with the joint operation mode, the independent operation mode of rural collective economies exhibits a significant synergistic effect with cultural functions in enhancing farmers' sense of spiritual gain. Moreover, when accounting for differences in operation scale, the findings indicate that public service functions generate a significant synergistic effect with larger-scale collective economies. In other words, a greater scale of collective economy amplifies the positive influence of public service functions on farmers' sense of spiritual gain.
Keywords: Rural collective economy, Cultural function, public service function, Sense of Spiritual gain, heterogeneity analysis
Received: 27 Jun 2025; Accepted: 10 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zhang and Huo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Mei Zhang, zhangm@zjweu.edu.cn
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