Livelihood adaptation and life satisfaction among land-lost farmers: Critiquing China’s urbanisation-driven land appropriation

Abstract

Large-scale rural land appropriation and displacement, driven by the unprecedented urban growth currently experienced in China, has created millions of land-lost peasants who live in the city but remain culturally, socially and institutionally rural. The situation has attracted growing attention in the literature because of its negative social impact, but relatively few studies have addressed how land-lost farmers adapt to urban ways of life and what factors influence their life satisfaction. In this paper, we investigate the predictors of livelihood adaptation and life satisfaction of land-lost farmers from a land appropriation case in the city of Changchun, Northeast China. The results show that, five years after the appropriation, livelihood adaptation remained very difficult and life satisfaction was poor among the resettlers. Furthermore, marginalised groups, such as those who were older, less educated and from smaller families, and those with lower pre-displacement income were less likely to have a higher income level after resettlement, resulting in a lower level of life satisfaction. Women also had lower life satisfaction than men. The study highlights an urgent need to improve China’s unjust land appropriation policy with a particular focus on attending to the needs of marginalised groups.

Land Consolidation in Rural China: Life Satisfaction among Resettlers and Its Determinants

“…Second, the multifaceted impact of land consolidation on the resettlers and how this is linked to satisfaction demands more attention [35]. Our results show that land consolidation created significant changes in villagers' livelihood, income, and living environment.…”

Hydropower, Social Capital, Community Impacts, and Self‐Rated Health in the Amazon*

“…This literature implies that the resettlement process can have a range of long‐run negative consequences for communities and that compensation programs often do not adequately compensate resettled populations for everything they have lost (Cernea 1997; Vanclay 2017). A loss of well‐being (e.g., life satisfaction, self‐rated health, or mental health) seems to be common (Hwang et al 2007; Tong, Zhu, and Lo 2019; Xi and Hwang 2011). However, Randell (2016) finds that a generous compensation program led to more positive outcomes for the case of one rural resettled population in Belo Monte.…”

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