How Digital Skills Affect Rural Labor Employment Choices? Evidence from Rural China

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

General comments

1.     This is an interesting manuscript with potential impact for rural communities in terms of workforce, business enhancement and community development. There is good discussion of types of skills within and related to technology.  The approach, methods and findings are reasonable.

2.     Presentation.

a.     Readability: very good.

b.     Flow/logical: well, the sections _, but the length is pretty long. Some readers and journals will want a concise manuscript.

                         i.     Example: Intro, Lit Rev and Mech of Infl on Dig Skill sections – most will skip this? That could be greatly shortened, simplified with key themes; a few pieces fit in the Discussion or are redundant with it.

                       ii.     The Methods are well-spelled out and Results follow, accordingly.

                      iii.     The overlap/combination of Results & Discussion is not preferable – early career writers ‘learned’ this in grants but publishing in journals requires a different skill set; and it is very long, too.

                      iv.     The Conclusion should typically be 1 para. As is, we get too long of a Results/Discussion and then another discussion in the Conclusion?

                       v.     Of all that is covered in Intro, Res/Disc and Conclusion…need to pick/prioritize about 5-6 key issues at most to set the foundation and provide context and cover them in the Intro and Discussion much more concisely.

c.      Many readers are not Chinese: please make an effort to generalize to other continents a bit in each section; at least in the Intro and Discussion.

 

Specific comments

Title.

1.     Capitalize China.

2.     Acronyms generally not used in titles.

3.     Simplify? ‘How dig sk affect rural laborers’ empl choices: an empiric…’

 

Abstract.

1.     ‘Good’ abstracts say more about the methods; that is what the discriminating readers want to see.

2.     The sentence ‘In addition…’ adds little; suggest delete.

3.     The 1-2 lines about future research are needed.

 

Introduction.

1.     See notes above, please. The more practical, basic approach is 4 para:

a.     Relevance.

b.     Current state.

c.      The gap (that the manuscript will fill).

d.     Objectives.

2.     How does this apply to readers who are not Chinese? And what authors in other countries are researching this? Canadians? Japanese? European?

 

Methods.

1.     Organization and detail is good; since some work done previously, can shorten?

2.     Statistical consultant could better evaluate this section.

3.     Clarify associative, correlated and causal relationships and methods.

 

Results.

1.     The data appear interesting.

2.     Please see comments above. We just really need to see the data – without the commentary. That is why Results and Discussion is separate. This section à Results will be much shorter.

3.     Not sure Tables 4, 7 and 8 are needed; since there are many tables, those may be easiest to put into prose.

 

Discussion.

1.     Length, synthesis and focus: Consider into 4 paragraphs and make it more synthetic:

a.     Relevant findings.

b.     Link with others’ findings.

c.      Implications.

d.     Limitations: they appear to be missing? Make a long list…things like

                         i.     Categories chosen.

                       ii.     Dataset pros/cons.

                      iii.     Statistical analyses pros/cons.

                      iv.     Discuss associative, correlated and causal relationships as pertinent.

 

Conclusion.

1.     1 para with 1-2 lines on future research.

 

Tables/Figures

1.     See above.

 

References

1.     Good.

 

 

Author Response

Thank you for your positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript. We have carefully revised our manuscript. For revisions, see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The quality of work in this manuscript is commendable. This manuscript can be accepted.

One suggestion is that the authors may provide a separate section for practical implication just before conclusion section. In the practical implication section, if the author provides policy, managerial, theoretical implications separately then it will better.  

Thank You

Author Response

Thank you for your positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript. We have carefully revised our manuscript. For revisions, see attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper is about the improving the quality of rural employment especially for rural households. The authors discuss how digital skills can help these households. To emphasize their analysis some different empirical tests are used with data that comes from the China Family Panel Studies. After the authors pointed out their literature review, the used theory and also the methods and data they were using for this paper, they described their results really detailed. Digitals skills do have an impact on rural labor in different areas. Also they increase the probability of non-farm employment and employed employment because of human and social capital. An important result, that the authors analyzed, is that the different digital skills that exist have a different degree of influence on the different employment areas in rural labor force. The paper is promising and can be published after incorporation of the comments.

The structure of the paper is overall really well but some parts could be shortened otherwise it can be a little bit of an overload for the reader. The authors analyzed and discussed the research and its results objective, which is good. Overall the essay is structured really well and can be read fluently.

 Major comments:

-        Abstract section of the paper really needs improvement

ð  Theory and method that are used in the paper were not really mentioned or described at all

ð  Which would be good so the reader knows what is going on

ð  Besides that it is well written and everything is mentioned. Refer to the following recent source regarding the favorable effects of digitalization in developing countries in the introductory part https://doi.org/10.1080/09537325.2022.2067037 

-        Method or theory were also not really mentioned in the introduction, which would be nice

ð  Reader “is still in the dark” and does not know what the authors are working with

-        The different opinions and authors that were used as literature in the paper are listed and mentioned in the literature review

ð  But there could be more than one short sentence for every author

ð  Could put some together and make longer sentences

ð  Overall a lot of literature which is only sufficient

ð To enrich the literature analysis with regards to employment effects refer to the following recent sources https://www.mdpi.com/2311-7524/8/3/263 & https://doi.org/10.1007/s13563-019-00202-6

-        Good point that the problematic with the existing studies is shown

ð  That it is really focused on one side of the topic

-        Empirical results and discussion part of the paper is really long

ð  It is good that the results are getting discussed

ð  But it could be a little bit shorter

ð  Can be some kind of overwhelming and a lot of information at once

 

Minor comments:

-        Some sentences are really long

ð  L345 to L354

ð  Almost too long because you forget how it started

ð  Could be divided in two or three sentences

-        BUT some sentences are too short

ð  A lot of really short sentences together, which can be kind of dull to read

ð  Could improve if you put some of them together to a sentence that is not too short or too long

 

-        Too long or too short sentences make it hard to read and understand at some points

Author Response

Thank you for your positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript. We have carefully revised our manuscript. For revisions, see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

 

General comments

1.     Most of my suggestions were not incorporated.

2.     Most journals request two versions: one clean and one with tracking. The version I got has changes in it – without a clean copy, I have to take this as it looks – and there are errors or it is hard to know what happened.

3.     Presentation.

a.     Readability/Flow/logical: well, the sections are still pretty long. Some readers and journals will want a concise manuscript. These issues persist.

                         i.     Example: Intro, Lit Rev and Mech of Infl on Dig Skill sections – most will skip this? That could be greatly shortened, simplified with key themes; a few pieces fit in the Discussion or are redundant with it.

                       ii.     The Methods are well-spelled out and Results follow, accordingly.

                      iii.     The overlap/combination of Results & Discussion is not preferable – early career writers ‘learned’ this in grants but publishing in journals requires a different skill set; and it is very long, too. This is not suitable for publication, in my opinion; it is more like an informal report to a funding agency in this format.

                      iv.     The Conclusion is very, very long and repetitive. It should typically be 1 para. As is, it is like another discussion in the Conclusion?

                       v.     Of all that is covered in Intro, Res/Disc and Conclusion…need to pick/prioritize about 5-6 key issues at most to set the foundation and provide context and cover them in the Intro and Discussion much more concisely.

b.     Many readers are not Chinese: please make an effort to generalize to other continents a bit in each section; at least in the Intro and Discussion. This was not done, in my opinion.

 

Specific comments

Title.

1.     Capitalize China; this was not done.

2.     Acronyms generally not used in titles. It appears in the version I received.

3.     Far too long.

 

Abstract.

1.     ‘Good’ abstracts say more about the methods; that is what the discriminating readers want to see. There appears to be less methods?

2.     The 1-2 lines about future research are needed.

 

Introduction.

1.     See notes above, please. The more practical, basic approach is 4 para:

a.     Relevance.

b.     Current state.

c.      The gap (that the manuscript will fill).

d.     Objectives.

2.     How does this apply to readers who are not Chinese? And what authors in other countries are researching this? Canadians? Japanese? European?

 

Methods.

1.     Organization and detail is good; since some work done previously, can shorten?

2.     Statistical consultant could better evaluate this section.

3.     Clarify associative, correlated and causal relationships and methods.

 

Results.

1.     The data appear interesting.

2.     Please see comments above. We just really need to see the data – without the commentary. That is why Results and Discussion is separate. This section à Results will be much shorter.

3.     Not sure Tables 4, 7 and 8 are needed; since there are many tables, those may be easiest to put into prose.

 

Discussion.

1.     Length, synthesis and focus: Consider into 4 paragraphs and make it more synthetic:

a.     Relevant findings.

b.     Link with others’ findings.

c.      Implications.

d.     Limitations: they appear to be missing? Make a long list…things like

                         i.     Categories chosen.

                       ii.     Dataset pros/cons.

                      iii.     Statistical analyses pros/cons.

                      iv.     Discuss associative, correlated and causal relationships as pertinent.

 

Conclusion.

1.     1 para with 1-2 lines on future research.

 

Tables/Figures

1.     See above.

 

References

1.     Good.

Author Response

Thanks for your positive and constructive comments and suggestions on our manuscript. We have made careful revisions to the manuscript. The revised version is attached. Since the journal system cannot upload two files at the same time, we are uploading the revised manuscript this time.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors have prudently revised the paper and managed to  improve it. In my opinion, the paper could be published in its cirrent form. 

Author Response

Thanks for your encouraging comments!

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf