Labor out-migration and agricultural change in rural China: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract

The relationships between migration and agriculture represents a key aspect of rural restructuring in China and many other developing countries. Previous research largely generated mixed and incomplete findings on the effects of rural out-migration on agricultural change. Meta-analysis is considered as an important research strategy for comparing and integrating results from individual studies. Using a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) approach, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of recent case studies of labor out-migration and agricultural change in rural China. The analysis revealed general contextual patterns of migration impacts on agriculture. Migration-induced agricultural change was mainly conditional upon the specific conjunctural configuration of a rural community's economic development level or geographical locality, its land resources and dependence on agriculture, and whether the period under investigation was post-agricultural tax abolition. Overall, this meta-study provides the big picture of the complex migration-agriculture relationships in rural China, which is often missed in smaller-scale case studies. Such synthetic findings are particularly useful for informing evidence-based rural development planning and policy making.

What is driving the abandonment of villages in the mountains of Southeast China?

“…The results were similar to those of many developed countries in the 19th and 20th century (Collantes & Pinilla, ; Hutchinson, ) and that of Japan since the late 1960s (Irving, ). These results are also consistent with other research in China (Qin & Liao, ; Wang, Yang, & Zhang, ; Zhu, ) and other developing countries (Rudel et al, ). Even in some of the least developed countries, the phenomenon has emerged (Chidi, ).…”

Estimating Housing Vacancy Rates in Rural China Using Power Consumption Data

“…In China, despite the large numbers migrating from rural to urban areas, rural housing areas showed an abnormal increase, with an average annual growth rate of 1.6% from 1990 to 2017. This is mainly due to the dual-track structure of China's socioeconomic development, the lack of social security, ambiguous property rights with respect to collective land, and the highly restrictive rural land transfer system, making migrants reluctant to abandon their ownership of farmland and housing after they have moved to the cities [15,16]. In addition to the inefficient use of land, village hollowing leads to deteriorated rural residential environments and the degradation of rural settlements, as well as raising major concerns about future food security [8,[17][18][19].…”

Preference of Rural Youth Livelihood in Indonesia Rural Areas and Its Factors

“…Land access and education are crucial to young people to gain their goals in agriculture (Bezu & Holden, 2014;Kidido, Bugri, & Kasanga, 2017;Roudart & Dave, 2017) where agro-climatic conditions are favorable in farming influence livelihood choice in agriculture (Davis, Di Giuseppe, & Zezza, 2017). Meanwhile, major factors defining young people to migrate are household and individual level, bad infrastructure, general service factors and environmental conditions (Deotti, Laura;Estruch, 2016;Leibert, 2016;Qin & Liao, 2016;Rauhut & Littke, 2016;Wiest, 2016). Furthermore, the important factors which influences off-farm employment decisions are age and education, wage and crop prices (Henderson, 2005;Z.…”