The call of Kinship: How Clan culture shapes rural residents’ commitment to hometown development in China
利用2016和2018年CLDS面板数据及福建访谈，发现宗族文化对居民家乡发展意愿有微弱正向影响，但意愿未转化为实际行为，且传统动员作用被非农经济、城镇化和政府治理削弱。
This study empirically examines the contemporary role of clan culture in rural development, finding its influence increasingly marginalized. Using panel data from the 2016 and 2018 China Labor-force Dynamics Survey (CLDS), supplemented by the 2010 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and qualitative insights from small-sample interviews conducted in southern Fujian Province in early 2026, we find that while clan culture exerts a statistically significant positive effect on residents’ willingness to contribute to hometown development, the impact is notably weak. Crucially, a “discrepancy between cognition and action” is observed: subjective willingness fails to translate into substantive behaviors such as financial donations, public services, or return-home investments. Consequently, clan culture no longer significantly improves the actual quality of rural public infrastructure. Mechanism analysis reveals that the non-agricultural economy, urbanization, and government-led governance modernization have significantly attenuated these traditional mobilization effects. We conclude that the substitution of informal institutions by formal government systems is an inevitable historical trajectory. As China modernizes its rural governance, deconstructing the closed nature of clan organizations and promoting their modern transformation is essential to provide diversified impetus for long-term development.