Research on the Effect of the Institutional Environment on College Students' Willingness to Engage in Agricultural-related Employment

Abstract

College students represent essential human capital for modernizing China's agricultural sector and rural regions and for achieving the nation's goal of becoming an agricultural powerhouse. Recent years have witnessed the continued introduction of policies designed to support agricultural development and cultivate a skilled workforce. However, university students' current level of interest in pursuing agricultural careers remains low, posing a challenge to the timely realization of China's agricultural ambitions. Accordingly, studying the factors influencing university students' willingness to pursue agricultural-related employment is necessary. According to this context, this paper analyzes 526 survey responses (based on institutional theory and the theory of planned behavior) to appraise how the institutional environment affects university students' interest in agricultural careers. The results exhibit that regulatory, normative, and cognitive institutions exert a significant positive effect on university students' willingness to pursue such careers. Moreover, attitudes towards farming, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control mediate this influence. Parental occupation also plays a moderating role: students whose parents work in agriculture are more susceptible to the effect of the agricultural employment institutional environment, which strengthens their attitudes towards farming, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. This mediating effect of attitudes towards farming, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control on the relationship between the institutional environment and willingness to engage in agricultural employment is amplified in this group. This paper explains how the institutional environment influences university students' career choices in agriculture, thereby contributing to the application of institutional theory and offering valuable theoretical insights for realizing China's ambition of building a strong agricultural sector.