Pork Consumption Patterns among Rural Residents in China: A Regional and Cultural Perspective (2000–2020)

Abstract

Pork is a principal component of the food supply for residents in China, acting as a primary source of animal protein. Analyzing the factors affecting pork consumption among rural Chinese residents is critical for understanding trends in the pig market and the direction of price control. China encompasses an immense geographical area (ranked third in the world) and is home to a globally acknowledged cultural diversity. This results in China having a diverse range of regional and cultural characteristics. These factors may profoundly influence the meat consumption habits of rural residents in China in a real-world context. In econometric decision making, traditional fixed effects models are incapable of estimating regional and cultural factors as these come under individual effects. In this study, leveraging a distinct fixed-effect filter model recently developed, we estimate these regional and cultural variables to verify whether they are statistically significant. This approach adds a fresh perspective to traditional consumption theory. This study uses panel data from 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions registered in national data as the research object. The detailed findings include: (1) Rural residents in coastal provinces show a stronger inclination towards pork consumption compared to those in inland areas. (2) The ethnic feature of provinces also presents a significant impact, with provinces reflecting Mongolian, Zhuang, Tujia, and Yi ethnic characteristics pointing to higher pork consumption. This contrasts with provinces characterized by Yao, Li, and Muslim ethnicities, which tend towards the opposite. Based on these empirical findings, this paper provides policy suggestions for optimizing the layout of the pig industry, which will offer multi-dimensional regulatory directions for optimizing the pig industry layout in China.