Sowing Seeds of Mobility: The Gendered Impact of Land Reform

Ting Chen (), Jiajia Gu (), L. Rachel Ngai () and Jin Wang ()
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Ting Chen: Hong Kong Baptist University
Jiajia Gu: International Monetary Fund
L. Rachel Ngai: London School of Economics
Jin Wang: Hong Kong Unverity of Science and Technology

No 18569, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: We study how land market frictions affect men and women differently during structural transformation, exploiting two major Chinese land reforms that strengthened farmers' rental rights. Using large-language-model text analysis, we construct a county-level reform index and combine it with large panel data to identify causal effects. The reforms shift rural women out of agriculture more than men and reduce urban women's employment and wages relative to men. A multisector model with intra-household labor allocation rationalizes these findings: gender-neutral land market frictions act as gender-specific mobility barriers, and their removal disproportionately accelerates women's transition into non-agricultural employment.

Keywords: gender; land; labor mobility; structural transformation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 J16 J61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-04
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