Empirical Research of Measurement and Variation of Farmers’Welfare Before and After Concentration of Living (Inhabitaregion)：A case study of Ezhou and Xiantao in Hubei Province

With a farmers’ welfare evaluation index system established based on Amartya Sen’s capability approach, and the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, a case study was performed of Ezhou and Xiantao, Hubei Province to evaluate changes in farmers’ welfare as a result of concentration of living (inhabitaregion). Results show that the farmers’ welfare decreased somewhat in level both in the two regions, and fuzzy evaluation indicates a drop from 0.455 and 0.442 to 0.373 and 0.366, respectively. From the perspective of functional activities, their social resources, housing conditions and living environment all improved, however, their economic conditions, guarantee of rights and interests and psychological emotion deteriorated in different degrees. Among all the functional activities, family economic conditions and guarantee of rights and interests varied the most significantly and were the major contributors to the decline of their welfare. From the angle of conversion factors, their education level, proportion of dependent population and regional differences all had some impacts changing the farmers’ welfare.