Interactive relationship between population aging, agricultural technology innovation and rural industrial upgrading

Population aging is one of the challenges facing China’s rural industrial upgrading. Rural industrial upgrading is the basis of rural industrial revitalization strategy, and agricultural technological innovation is the core of rural industrial upgrading. Clarifying the relationship between population aging, agricultural technology innovation and rural industrial upgrading can provide a practical basis for the government to formulate a practical and effective Rural Revitalization Strategy. Based on China’s time series data from 1997 to 2018, an autoregressive model is constructed to test the interactive relationship between China’s population aging, agricultural technology innovation and rural industrial upgrading. The results show that population aging and agricultural technology innovation will promote the upgrading of rural industries. Although in the short term, the intensification of population aging will have an adverse impact on rural industrial upgrading and agricultural technology innovation; However, in the long run, the aging population has significantly promoted the level of agricultural technology innovation and had a positive impact on the upgrading of rural industries. Based on this conclusion, three policy suggestions are given to guide the reemployment of the elderly, advocate the correct consumption view of the elderly and pay attention to agricultural technology innovation.