Group Heterogeneity of Rural Households’ Satisfaction with Good Life from the Perspective of Rural Revitalization—A Case Study from Zhejiang Province of China

Abstract

In the context of rural revitalization, this article explores the group heterogeneity and influencing factors of the satisfaction of rural households’ good life in five dimensions, including industry and economy, living environment, rural culture, rural governance, and material life, and provides micro evidence and policy suggestions for the specific strategies of deepening rural revitalization and improving the satisfaction level of rural households’ good life. Based on the field survey data in rural areas of Zhejiang Province, this article analyzes the group heterogeneity of rural households’ satisfaction with a good life through latent profile analysis and further reveals the influencing factors through multinomial logistic regression. The results indicate that most dimensions of rural households’ satisfaction with good life, except rural culture in Zhejiang, are higher than average. The rural households’ satisfaction with good life presents obvious group differences, which are aggregated into three latent classes: very-satisfied class, medium-satisfied class, and low-satisfied class. The results of multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that subjective psychological evaluation, such as communication, self-confidence, and village status evaluation, had significant positive effects on the group category of good life satisfaction. The proportion of non-agricultural income and the level of per-capita family income have a significant negative influence on the group category of good life satisfaction, and the condition of public service at the village level has a significant positive influence on the group category of good life satisfaction. The satisfaction of rural households on sanitary toilet environment, New Year celebration, cultural activities in the countryside, work of village committee, fair treatment of village affairs, and soliciting opinions of village affairs were not high. Lack of self-confidence in communication and other subjective psychological factors and poor public service conditions at the village level are the important reasons for this. Therefore, measures should be taken to deepen the construction of rural civilization, build a multi-path and long-term mechanism to increase farmers’ income, and make up for the shortage of rural infrastructure and public services.