Does off-Farm Migration of Female Laborers Inhibit Land Transfer? Evidence from Sichuan Province, China

With the feminization of agriculture, the role of women in the rural land transfer market is becoming increasingly important. However, at present, there is little research focusing on the relationship between the off-farm migration of female laborers and land transfer rates. Using data on 1652 agricultural land plots owned by 232 rural households in Sichuan Province in 2014, IV-Probit (The Probit model of tool variable method is added) and IV-Tobit (The Tobit model of tool variable method is added) models were constructed to explore the relationships between off-farm migration and rural household land transfer (whether the rural households have land transfer-in and the area of land transfer-in by rural households) with consideration of gender. The results show that: (1) Off-farm labor migration has a negative and significant impact on rural households’ land transfer-in rates. Under the same conditions, the off-farm migration rate increased by 10%, the probability of transfer-in land decreased by 2.6% on average, and the transfer-in area decreased by 2.7 mu on average. (2) The off-farm migration of female laborers inhibited land transfer-in rates. For every 10% increase in female labor migration, the probability of land transfer-in decreased by an average of 2.1%, and the land transfer-in area was reduced by an average of 3 mu (1 mu = 667 m² or 0.067 ha). However, the impact of male labor migration on farmers’ land transfer-in is negative and not significant. This study provides a novel, gendered perspective to understand land transfer-in behaviors in hilly areas, which can provide further information on off-farm labor migration and the rational allocation of land resources.