Difference Analysis of the Influence of Rural Land on the Willingness of Agricultural Transfer Populations to Settle Down in Cities

Abstract

Promoting the orderly settlement of the agricultural transfer population in cities is an important part of citizenship, and it is necessary to analyze the factors influencing the decision of this population to do so. Most existing studies have analyzed an entire region or a particular area, and there is a lack of comparison of the differences in agricultural migrant populations in different outflow areas. In the vast expanse of China, there are significant differences in land resources, economic development, and sociocultural backgrounds among different regions. Therefore, using the 2017 national dynamic monitoring data of the migrant population, spatial autocorrelation analysis, and binary logistic regression models, this study compares spatial characteristics and the influential relationships between the willingness of agricultural migrants to settle in cities and their rural land ownership in China's four major economic subregions. The results are as follows: 1) Ownership of contracted ground has the strongest inhibitory effect on the willingness of the population to settle from the northeast, followed by the east, the west, and the central area. The relationship between rural land size and willingness to settle is negative in both the eastern and northeastern regions—the larger the contracted land size, the weaker the willingness to settle, whereas the opposite is true in the central and western regions. 2) The ownership of homesteads reduces willingness to settle, and homesteads with a smaller-than-average area have a weaker inhibiting effect on willingness to settle than homesteads with a larger-than-average area; however, the degree of the inhibiting effect of residential land on willingness to settle varies by region of outflow. There are differences in the degree of suppression of willingness to settle in different outflow areas, with the effect of having a larger-than-average homestead area being more suppressive of willingness to settle in the central and western regions. Thus, this study finds that rural land resources are an important constraint in the decision to settle, but that there are significant regional differences in the inhibitory effect of agricultural land on settlement behavior. This difference stems from the disparate levels of economic development and urban-rural construction across the country on the one hand, and the differing values of rural land in different socio-cultural contexts on the other. Agricultural migrants constantly weigh the benefits and security of owning rural land and the economic incentives to abandon rural land against the rights and interests of urban hukou. This impacts the rural land and its effect on the willingness of the migrant population to settle in different outflow areas. In the case of contracted ground, the productivity and property value of the land become important tradeoffs for the migrant population in each outflow area. A homestead may be more of a "root" concept and a "home" guarantee that constrains the settlement behavior of the population in different outflow areas. Regional differences in collective dividends also significantly influence the extent of their impact.

Keywords

• agricultural transfer population
• willingness to settle
• rural land
• china