Does Land Transfer Enhance the Sustainable Livelihood of Rural Households? Evidence from China

Hui Yang, Zeng Huang, Zhuoying Fu, Jiayou Dai, Yan Yang () and Wei Wang ()
Additional contact information
Hui Yang: School of Management, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Zeng Huang: School of Management, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Zhuoying Fu: School of Management, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China
Jiayou Dai: School of Economics and Management, Tsinghua University, Hai Dian, Beijing 100084, China
Yan Yang: Organization Department and Personnel Division, Chengdu Agricultural College, Chengdu 611130, China
Wei Wang: School of Management, Sichuan Agricultural University, Chengdu 611130, China

Agriculture, 2023, vol. 13, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: Land transfer and its socio-economic impact are key areas of research interest. Such an examination can help to enhance the sustainability of farming livelihoods, maximise livelihood strategies, and achieve sustainable development. This paper establishes a sustainable livelihood evaluation index for rural households based on sustainable livelihood theory. It measures the degree of sustainability in the livelihoods of farmers based on field research data from 650 rural households in Hubei Province, China, and analyses the impact of land transfer using a multiple linear regression model. A number of control variables were identified and introduced into the analysis. It also uses the regression decomposition approach to investigate the impact of each factor on the sustainable livelihoods of rural households. The findings revealed that (1) land transfer can significantly increase the sustainability of rural households’ livelihoods; (2) livelihood sustainability increases with the size of the land transfer area; and (3) the primary elements determining the ability of rural households to maintain sustainable living are land transfers, the amount of land transferred, and the size of the family. Based on these findings, this study argues for the need to improve land transfer management, accelerate agricultural industrialisation and promote the transfer of land contract management rights to improve the livelihoods of rural households.

Keywords: land transfer; rural households; sustainable livelihoods; regression decomposition method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/9/1667/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/13/9/1667/ (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:jagris:v:13:y:2023:i:9:p:1667-:d:1223793

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

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