Do land renting-in and its marketization increase labor input in agriculture? Evidence from rural China

Qiu Tongwei, Biliang Luo, S.T. Boris Choy, Yifei Li and Qinying He

Land Use Policy, 2020, vol. 99, issue C

Abstract: There exist problems of land abandonment and low-efficiency land use when China is undergoing active rural-urban migration. Whether increasing land scale can attract more labor engaged in land use is important to increase land-use efficiency and relieve labor shortage in agriculture. This paper uses data from the 2015 China Household Finance Survey to assess the relationship between land renting-in and labor input in agriculture. The results show that land renting-in increases labor input in agriculture. With higher land rents and profit motives, more labor in lessees’ households will be engaged in agriculture. Further analysis indicates that there is no difference in labor input in agriculture between lessees transacting with acquaintances and those transacting with non-acquaintances for the increasing marketization of land rentals between acquaintances in today’s China. Our analysis implies that developing land rental markets and promoting the marketization of land rentals are important approaches to land use sustainability and relieving labor shortage in agriculture, which has great policy implications for countries with rapid rural-urban migration and abandoned arable land.

Keywords: Labor input; Land renting-in; Land use; Marketization; Rural-urban migration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:99:y:2020:i:c:s0264837719319283

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.104820

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