Forced off Farm? Labor Allocation Response to Land Requisition in Rural China

Arbeitspapier

Land requisition has been an important process by which Chinese local governments promote urbanization and generate revenue. This study investigates the impacts of land requisition on farmers' decisions of labor allocation between agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. We argue that, conditional on village fixed effects, land requisition can be explored as a quasi-natural experiment to identify the relationship between land rights and labor allocation of farmers. We find that young farmers (age 16-44) are not affected in their migration decisions by land loss through requisition, while some older farmers (age 45-55) are affected. In response to land loss through requisition, the probability that older farmers living beyond the mean distance from the county seat migrates to cities increases by 8.5 percentage points. An econometric test confirms that the finding is unlikely to be driven by unobserved variables associated with household experience of land loss. This finding raises concerns about the wellbeing of the farmers who may not be competitive in the urban labor market and therefore unlikely to leave farming unless they have to.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: IZA Discussion Papers ; No. 10640

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development ; Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration ; Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers ; Land Ownership and Tenure; Land Reform; Land Use; Irrigation; Agriculture and Environment ; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Government Policy
• Thema: land institution ; land requisition ; migration ; urbanization ; farmers ; China

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Ma, Shuang ; Mu, Ren
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
• (wo): Bonn
• (wann): 2017

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/161263
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:45 MEZ