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

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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.
Funding Information
  • Humanities and Social Sciences Foundation of MOE (Ministry of Education in China) (21YJC630023, SZ2022B023, 2023A1515012414)
  • 2022 philosophy and social sciences planning project of Shenzhen (21YJC630023, SZ2022B023, 2023A1515012414)
  • Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation of Guangdong (21YJC630023, SZ2022B023, 2023A1515012414)
  • Shenzhen Humanities & Social Sciences Key Research Bases (21YJC630023, SZ2022B023, 2023A1515012414)

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