Farmland Transfer Participation and Rural Well-Being Inequality: Evidence from Rural China with the Capability Approach

Wenjing Han, Yang Fu () and Wen Sun
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Wenjing Han: School of Government, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Yang Fu: School of Government, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518060, China
Wen Sun: Department of Public & International Affairs, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong 999077, China

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-21

Abstract: Participation in the farmland transfer market provides farmers with diversified opportunities which would generate a range of social and economic benefits to improve their overall well-being. However, the previous studies have disproportionately focused on the income increase of farmers’ participation while ignoring its impact on other dimensions significantly contributing to the well-being gap of farmers with different social and economic characteristics. Based on the capability approach, this study constructed a multi-dimensional well-being assessment framework and employed the fuzzy method to evaluate the well-being level of rural households. By employing the national rural survey data from China, this paper examined the impact of farmland transfer participation on the well-being of farmers with different livelihoods. Further, it explored the influence of farmland transfer participation on the well-being gap of farmers by using the quantile regression method. Our results suggest that farmland transfer participation played a positive role in increasing farmers’ well-being, while farmland transfer participation has no significant impact on farmers’ well-being inequality. Meanwhile, the heterogeneity of farmers’ livelihoods is the key factor for the differentiation of farmers’ well-being.

Keywords: farmland transfer; well-being inequality; capability approach; quantile regression (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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