Analysis of factors influencing the off-farm employment based on the method of PLS

Abstract

With the widening income gap between the urban and rural areas, off-farm employment has undergone rapid development. The essay aims at analyzing the factors influencing the off-farm employment according to the statistics collected from Changle City in Fujian Province using the method of Partial Least-squares (PLS). Since current statistical methods such as the least squares, Logistics and the principle component analysis can not avoid the existence of the problems such as multiple correlation, single dependent variable and poorly explanatory information. However, these problems can be smoothed away by implementing the method of PLS. The results show that training experience of the rural labor force, education level, vocational skills, and health status are main factors influencing the off-farm employment while working area only has a slight impact. Some correspondent solutions and advice are available according to the analysis. © 2011 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.