Agricultural to Nonagricultural: Logic of Farmer’s Identity Choice Under National Construction

In the early days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, due to the need for national integration and social order reconstruction, the state adopted a dual urban–rural household registration system. This led to the emergence of differences between “agricultural household registration” and “nonagricultural household registration,” which were reflected through differences in resource allocation, leading to a crisis of identity among farmers and barriers between urban and rural household registrations. Consequently, the state’s strict control over the population’s migration from rural to urban areas and the farmers’ desire to transition from “agricultural to nonagricultural” formed a contradiction. Farmers could only achieve this transition through means such as employment, education, marriage, and conscription, making these opportunities the only bridge by which to achieve this transition. However, the transformation of the state’s economic system and the regulatory role of the market have diluted farmers’ consciousness of this transition, and reverse selection has appeared in some areas. However, the long-term urban–rural division has led to social contradictions caused by the imbalance of resource allocation between urban and rural areas, affecting social and economic development and stability in many ways. The integration of urban and rural areas will inevitably constitute the direction of future urban and rural social development and governance.