The Impact of Off-Farm Employment Recession and Land on Farmers’ Mental Health: Empirical Evidence from Rural China

Ziyu Wang, Qiran Zhao and Yueqing Ji ()
Additional contact information
Ziyu Wang: College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Yueqing Ji: College of Economics and Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China

Land, 2024, vol. 13, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: The agricultural land management under the household responsibility system (HRS) in rural China empowers farmers with land tenure rights, meeting the basic needs for their livelihoods and employment by cultivating the land. This paper investigates the pivotal role of agricultural cultivated land as a social safety net, ensuring livelihood security for farmers confronting a recession in off-farm employment. Our analysis is based on data collected from six provinces (Heilongjiang, Henan, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Shandong, and Anhui) in the rural areas of China from 2019 to 2020. We investigated the impact of the off-farm employment recession on the mental health of farmers and the moderating effect of land as a social safety net on the relationship between the off-farm employment recession and mental health. The analysis points to the following results: (1) The majority of farmers have significantly reduced off-farm working time during employment recession. (2) The off-farm employment recession has worsened farmers’ mental health. (3) Farmers’ land assets through tenure rights provide both income and employment security functions, which can mitigate the adverse effects of the off-farm employment recession on their mental health. The findings of this study highlight the crucial role of land assets to reduce the negative impact of unemployment in the context of economic recession, emphasizing the significance of the policies supporting the land rights among vulnerable rural groups.

Keywords: rural farmers’ livelihood; land tenure rights; mental health; economic recession; employment and unemployment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/6/837/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/13/6/837/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:13:y:2024:i:6:p:837-:d:1413458

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().