Cooperative membership and skill transmission: evidence from apprenticeship among agricultural machinery operators in China

Agricultural machinery operators constitute a crucial skilled workforce for mechanization service provision, but population ageing and rural labour outmigration are threatening the continuity of this workforce and the transmission of its operational skills. Using survey data from 2,458 agricultural machinery operators across five provinces in China, this study examines whether cooperative membership promotes apprenticeship-based skill transmission. The baseline results show that cooperative membership is significantly and positively associated with skill transmission. The results are robust to IV Poisson estimation, propensity score matching, and a negative binomial specification. Mechanism analysis suggests that cooperative membership may promote skill transmission by enhancing operators’ occupational identity and expanding their business volume. Heterogeneity analysis further shows that this positive association is stronger among multi-skilled operators and non-cross-regional operators. Additional analysis of operators who have not yet trained apprentices indicates that cooperative membership also increases their willingness and plans for future skill transmission. These findings suggest that cooperatives not only organize mechanization services and facilitate technology diffusion, but also serve as important platforms for agricultural human capital formation.