Author(s)

David Xiong

Corresponding Author

David Xiong

Abstract

In the wake of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) land reforms over the years granting greater operational autonomy for land use, scholars have had renewed interests in the relationship between such land policies and rural-urban migration patterns. Using empirical methods, this paper explores the relationship between rural land transfer and rural-urban migration in China’s population. It defines rural land transfer through a quantitative means by expressing it as the percentage of land rented out by a household to account for regional variations in land availability. Using data from the 2013 China Longitudinal Health and Retirement Survey (CHARLS), this study runs a probit regression to study the impact of rural land transfer on the likelihood to migrate. Robustness checks confirm the statistical reliability and significance of these results. The study then strengthens this relationship by confirming a causal relationship between the two variables through using the ownership of fixed capital assets as an instrument variable (IV). Finally, it concludes that these findings have significant policymaking implications that necessitate the continued strengthening and reforms of China’s rural land rights and contracting laws.

Keywords

Rural Land, Land Transfer, Rental Market, Land Reforms, Migration, Demographic Patterns