Forced off the farm? Farmers' labor allocation response to land requisition in China. (August 2020)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Forced off the farm? Farmers' labor allocation response to land requisition in China. (August 2020)
- Main Title:
- Forced off the farm? Farmers' labor allocation response to land requisition in China
- Authors:
- Ma, Shuang
Mu, Ren - Abstract:
- Highlights: Land requisition decisions made by administrative bureaucracies are independent of the observed household and individual characteristics. Land loss due to government requisition increases individual migration propensity by 4.5 to 6.8 percentage points. Land requisition has no impact on local off-farm engagement. Abstract: Land requisition has been an important way for local Chinese governments to generate revenue and promote urbanization, but little is known how the land-losing farmers cope. This study investigates the impact of land requisition on farmers' off-farm labor participation. We provide evidence that rural-urban migration is one way that land-losing farmers now adapt to land requisition. Using data from the China Household Finance Survey, we first show that village characteristics, not household characteristics, are the key determining factors for how likely a household is to lose land. With a traditional difference-in-differences (DD) model and a DD model with individual fixed effects, we show that land loss due to government requisition has a significant migration effect in the total sample: it increases individual migration rates by 4.5–6.8 percentage points. Land requisition has no impact on local off-farm engagement. These findings are robust to using different samples, to correction for sample attrition, and to a falsification test. We also find that the migration effect is experienced in particular by younger and older farmers, by women, and byHighlights: Land requisition decisions made by administrative bureaucracies are independent of the observed household and individual characteristics. Land loss due to government requisition increases individual migration propensity by 4.5 to 6.8 percentage points. Land requisition has no impact on local off-farm engagement. Abstract: Land requisition has been an important way for local Chinese governments to generate revenue and promote urbanization, but little is known how the land-losing farmers cope. This study investigates the impact of land requisition on farmers' off-farm labor participation. We provide evidence that rural-urban migration is one way that land-losing farmers now adapt to land requisition. Using data from the China Household Finance Survey, we first show that village characteristics, not household characteristics, are the key determining factors for how likely a household is to lose land. With a traditional difference-in-differences (DD) model and a DD model with individual fixed effects, we show that land loss due to government requisition has a significant migration effect in the total sample: it increases individual migration rates by 4.5–6.8 percentage points. Land requisition has no impact on local off-farm engagement. These findings are robust to using different samples, to correction for sample attrition, and to a falsification test. We also find that the migration effect is experienced in particular by younger and older farmers, by women, and by the better educated. From a policy perspective, the labor allocation response to land requisition identified in this paper suggests that providing job training and social protection to land-losing farmers, and facilitating their migration to cities, could help them to cope with the experience of land loss. … (more)
- Is Part Of:
- World development. Volume 132(2020)
- Journal:
- World development
- Issue:
- Volume 132(2020)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 132, Issue 2020 (2020)
- Year:
- 2020
- Volume:
- 132
- Issue:
- 2020
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2020-0132-2020-0000
- Page Start:
- Page End:
- Publication Date:
- 2020-08
- Subjects:
- Land requisition -- Land seizure -- Land tenure -- Migration -- Urbanization -- Asia -- China
Economic history -- 1990- -- Periodicals
Economic assistance -- Developing countries -- Periodicals
330.9 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0305750X ↗
http://www.elsevier.com/journals ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.104980 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0305-750X
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 9354.150000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
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