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Land expropriation is a major source of conflict in contemporary rural China. Existing research tends to frame land expropriation as ‘dispossession’—local governments expropriating land to pursue economic growth at the expense of villagers' welfare. However, systematic evidence on the livelihood impacts of land expropriation is limited, which has made assessing this interpretation difficult. This study uses nationally representative longitudinal data to examine the immediate effects of land expropriation on villagers' livelihoods as well as how they evolve over the following years. It finds that households with migrant workers saw significant socio‐economic gains after land expropriation through both increased wage income and government compensation. Households without migrant workers, on the other hand, experienced a small deterioration in their socio‐economic position as their income remained stagnant while their living costs increased. These findings cast a different light on the dispossession thesis not only because a significant portion of the rural population makes socio‐economic gains after land expropriation but also by problematizing assumptions that smallholding agriculture is necessarily the most desirable source of livelihood for villagers. Instead, it calls for attention to villagers' increasingly diversified livelihood strategies, as well as the multifaceted role of the state in the process.

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