Publication: Village Political Economy, Land Tenure Insecurity, and the Rural to Urban Migration Decision : Evidence from China
Loading...
Date
2014-11
ISSN
Published
2014-11
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper investigates the impact of land tenure insecurity on the migration decisions of China's rural residents. A simple model first frames the relationship among these variables and the probability that a reallocation of land will occur in the following year. After first demonstrating that a village leader's support for administrative land reallocation carries with it the risk of losing a future election, the paper exploits election-timing and village heterogeneity in lineage group composition and demographic change to identify the effect of land security. In response to an expected land reallocation in the following year, the probability that a rural resident migrates out of the county declines by 2.8 percentage points, which accounts for 17.5 percent of the annual share of village residents, aged 16 to 50, who worked as migrants during the period. This finding underscores the potential importance of secure property rights for facilitating labor market integration and the movement of labor out of agriculture.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Giles, John; Mu, Ren. 2014. Village Political Economy, Land Tenure Insecurity, and the Rural to Urban Migration Decision : Evidence from China. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 7080. © http://hdl.handle.net/10986/20635 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Future of Poverty(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-15)Climate change is increasingly acknowledged as a critical issue with far-reaching socioeconomic implications that extend well beyond environmental concerns. Among the most pressing challenges is its impact on global poverty. This paper projects the potential impacts of unmitigated climate change on global poverty rates between 2023 and 2050. Building on a study that provided a detailed analysis of how temperature changes affect economic productivity, this paper integrates those findings with binned data from 217 countries, sourced from the World Bank’s Poverty and Inequality Platform. By simulating poverty rates and the number of poor under two climate change scenarios, the paper uncovers some alarming trends. One of the primary findings is that the number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide could be nearly doubled due to climate change. In all scenarios, Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to bear the brunt, contributing the largest number of poor people, with estimates ranging between 40.5 million and 73.5 million by 2050. Another significant finding is the disproportionate impact of inequality on poverty. Even small increases in inequality can lead to substantial rises in poverty levels. For instance, if every country’s Gini coefficient increases by just 1 percent between 2022 and 2050, an additional 8.8 million people could be pushed below the international poverty line by 2050. In a more extreme scenario, where every country’s Gini coefficient increases by 10 percent between 2022 and 2050, the number of people falling into poverty could rise by an additional 148.8 million relative to the baseline scenario. These findings underscore the urgent need for comprehensive climate policies that not only mitigate environmental impacts but also address socioeconomic vulnerabilities.Publication Central Bank Independence and Sovereign Borrowing(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-25)This paper studies the impact of central bank independence on sovereign borrowing, using an index that captures institutional constraints on central bank lending to the government across 155 countries from 1972 to 2023. The findings show that tighter lending to the executive significantly reduces sovereign interest rates and raises the debt-to-gross domestic product ratio in developing countries. These effects reflect the executive’s improved ability to borrow at lower costs under greater central bank independence. The results are robust to multiple tests, but there are no significant effects in advanced economies. From a policy perspective, the results highlight the key role of independent central banks as catalysts for reducing governments’ borrowing costs and enhancing the government’s borrowing capacity.Publication Disentangling the Key Economic Channels through Which Infrastructure Affects Jobs(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-04-03)This paper takes stock of the literature on infrastructure and jobs published since the early 2000s, using a conceptual framework to identify the key channels through which different types of infrastructure impact jobs. Where relevant, it highlights the different approaches and findings in the cases of energy, digital, and transport infrastructure. Overall, the literature review provides strong evidence of infrastructure’s positive impact on employment, particularly for women. In the case of electricity, this impact arises from freeing time that would otherwise be spent on household tasks. Similarly, digital infrastructure, particularly mobile phone coverage, has demonstrated positive labor market effects, often driven by private sector investments rather than large public expenditures, which are typically required for other large-scale infrastructure projects. The evidence on structural transformation is also positive, with some notable exceptions, such as studies that find no significant impact on structural transformation in rural India in the cases of electricity and roads. Even with better market connections, remote areas may continue to lack economic opportunities, due to the absence of agglomeration economies and complementary inputs such as human capital. Accordingly, reducing transport costs alone may not be sufficient to drive economic transformation in rural areas. The spatial dimension of transformation is particularly relevant for transport, both internationally—by enhancing trade integration—and within countries, where economic development tends to drive firms and jobs toward urban centers, benefitting from economies scale and network effects. Turning to organizational transformation, evidence on skill bias in developing countries is more mixed than in developed countries and may vary considerably by context. Further research, especially on the possible reasons explaining the differences between developed and developing economies, is needed.Publication Crowding Out and Banking Crises(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-22)This paper studies the effect of government issuance on firm issuance during banking crises using transaction-level bond and loan data from 66 countries between 1991 and 2017. Governments rarely issue loans, preferring to issue in bond markets. In contrast, firms receive most of their financing from banks. During banking crises, as the supply of domestic loans decreases, firms switch to issuing bonds in domestic markets. The paper uses a novel instrument based on maturing debt to overcome the potential endogeneity of government issuance. The findings show that firms must compete with the government for funds in the domestic bond market and are crowded out from this market as a result. This happens not only in developing countries, but in advanced countries as well. The paper also shows that firms with the ability to tap international debt markets switch to these markets when crowding out occurs in domestic bond markets. Lastly, the paper shows that more developed domestic bond markets mitigate, but do not eliminate, the degree to which crowding out occurs.Publication Designing and Analyzing Powerful Experiments(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-07-22)This paper offers practical advice on how to improve statistical power in randomized experiments through choices and actions researchers can take at the design, implementation, and analysis stages. At the design stage, the choice of estimand, choice of treatment, and decisions that affect the residual variance and intra-cluster correlation can all affect power for a given sample size. At the implementation stage, researchers can boost power through increasing compliance with treatment, reducing attrition, and improving outcome measurement. At the analysis stage, power can be increased through using different test statistics or estimands, through the choice of control variables, and through incorporating informative priors in a Bayesian analysis. A key message is that it does not make sense to talk of “the” power of an experiment. A study can be well-powered for one outcome or estimand, but not others, and a fixed sample size can yield very different levels of power depending on researcher decisions.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Expanding Women's Access to Land and Housing in Urban Areas(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2014)Evidence is mounting that secure property rights have positive effects for poor people in general and women in particular. The aim of this report is to review what is known about women s access to and control over land and real property in urban settings, identifying approaches to strengthening property rights that enhance women s agency, and sharing key lessons. Section two synthesizes the evidence on urban women s priorities with respect to land and housing; the factors that influence women s access to and control over land and secure tenure, including legal and institutional frameworks and social relationships, especially within the family; and what is known about the extent to which women have access to, control over and use of urban land and housing, and through what forms of tenure. In section three, recent reform of laws, policies and practices to meet the needs of poor people in urban areas, especially women, will be assessed. Section four provides a short discussion of some of the strategies, tactics and alliances that are being adopted to bring about legal reforms and to influence the content, design and implementation of programs in urban areas. The report draws on successive research projects by the author and her colleagues on land and housing markets and policies, urban livelihoods, and urban politics and governance in a variety of contexts, in particular Rakodi (2010).Publication Migrant Labor Markets and the Welfare of Rural Households in the Developing World : Evidence From China(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-04)In this paper, the authors examine the impact of reductions in barriers to migration on the consumption of rural households in China. The authors find that increased migration from rural villages leads to significant increases in consumption per capita, and that this effect is stronger for poorer households within villages. Household income per capita and non-durable consumption per capita both increase with out-migration, and increase more for poorer households. The authors also establish a causal relationship between increased out-migration and investment in housing and durable goods assets, and these effects are also stronger for poorer households. The authors do not find robust evidence, however, to support a connection between increased migration and investment in productive activity. Instead, increased migration is associated with two significant changes for poorer households: increases both in the total labor supplied to productive activities and in the land per capita managed by the household. In examining the effect of migration, we pay considerable attention to developing and examining our identification strategy.Publication Migrant Opportunity and the Educational Attainment of Youth in Rural China(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2008-02)This paper investigates how reductions of barriers to migration affect the decision of middle school graduates to attend high school in rural China. Change in the cost of migration is identified using exogenous variation across counties in the timing of national identity card distribution, which made it easier for rural migrants to register as temporary residents in urban destinations. The analysis first shows that timing of identification card distribution is unrelated to local rainfall shocks affecting migration decisions, and that timing is not related to proxies reflecting time-varying changes in village policy or administrative capacity. The findings show a robust negative relationship between migrant opportunity and high school enrollment. The mechanisms behind the negative relationship are suggested by observed increases in subsequent local and migrant non-agricultural employment of high school age young adults as the size of the current village migrant network increases.Publication The Elderly and Old Age Support in Rural China : Challenges and Prospects(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2012-03-13)Although average incomes in China have risen dramatically since the 1980s, concerns are increasing that the rural elderly have not benefited from growth to the same extent as younger people and the urban elderly. Concerns about welfare of the rural elderly combine spatial and demographic issues. Large gaps exist between conditions in coastal and interior regions and between conditions in urban and rural areas of the country. In addition to differences in income by geography, considerable differences exist across demographic groups in the level of coverage by safety nets, in the benefits received through the social welfare system, and in the risks of falling into poverty. This book aims to do two things: first, it provides detailed empirical analysis of the welfare and living conditions of the rural elderly since the early 1990s in the context of large-scale rural-to-urban migration, and second, it explores the evolution of the rural pension system in China over the past two decades and raises a number of issues on its current implementation and future directions. Although the two sections of the book are distinct in analytical terms, they are closely linked in policy terms: the first section demonstrates in several ways a rationale for greater public intervention in the welfare of the rural elderly, and the second documents the response of policy to date and options to consider for deepening the coverage and effects of the rural pension system over the longer term.Publication Family Systems, Political systems, and Asia’s ‘Missing Girls’ : The Construction of Son Preference and Its Unraveling(2009-12-01)Son preference is known to be found in certain types of cultures, that is patrilineal cultures. But what explains the fact that China, South Korea, and Northwest India manifest such extreme child sex ratios compared with other patrilineal societies? This paper argues that what makes these societies unique is that their pre-modern political and administrative systems used patrilineages to organize and administer their citizens. The interplay of culture, state, and political processes generated uniquely rigid patriliny and son preference. The paper also argues that the advent of the modern state in these settings has unraveled the underpinnings of the rigid patrilineal rules, and unleashed a variety of forces that reduce son preference. Firstly, the modern state has powerful tools for incorporating and managing its citizenry, rendering patrilineages a threat rather than an asset for the state. Secondly, the modern state has brought in political, social, and legal reforms aimed to challenge traditional social hierarchies, including the age and gender hierarchies of the kinship system. Thirdly, industrialization and urbanization have ushered in new modes of social organization, which reduce the hold of clans and lineages. Studies of the impact of the media suggest that states can accelerate the resultant decline in son preference, through media efforts to help parents perceive that daughters can now be as valuable as sons.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Argentina Country Climate and Development Report(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2022-11)The Argentina Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) explores opportunities and identifies trade-offs for aligning Argentina’s growth and poverty reduction policies with its commitments on, and its ability to withstand, climate change. It assesses how the country can: reduce its vulnerability to climate shocks through targeted public and private investments and adequation of social protection. The report also shows how Argentina can seize the benefits of a global decarbonization path to sustain a more robust economic growth through further development of Argentina’s potential for renewable energy, energy efficiency actions, the lithium value chain, as well as climate-smart agriculture (and land use) options. Given Argentina’s context, this CCDR focuses on win-win policies and investments, which have large co-benefits or can contribute to raising the country’s growth while helping to adapt the economy, also considering how human capital actions can accompany a just transition.Publication World Development Report 2006(Washington, DC, 2005)This year’s Word Development Report (WDR), the twenty-eighth, looks at the role of equity in the development process. It defines equity in terms of two basic principles. The first is equal opportunities: that a person’s chances in life should be determined by his or her talents and efforts, rather than by pre-determined circumstances such as race, gender, social or family background. The second principle is the avoidance of extreme deprivation in outcomes, particularly in health, education and consumption levels. This principle thus includes the objective of poverty reduction. The report’s main message is that, in the long run, the pursuit of equity and the pursuit of economic prosperity are complementary. In addition to detailed chapters exploring these and related issues, the Report contains selected data from the World Development Indicators 2005‹an appendix of economic and social data for over 200 countries. This Report offers practical insights for policymakers, executives, scholars, and all those with an interest in economic development.Publication Lebanon Economic Monitor, Fall 2022(Washington, DC, 2022-11)The economy continues to contract, albeit at a somewhat slower pace. Public finances improved in 2021, but only because spending collapsed faster than revenue generation. Testament to the continued atrophy of Lebanon’s economy, the Lebanese Pound continues to depreciate sharply. The sharp deterioration in the currency continues to drive surging inflation, in triple digits since July 2020, impacting the poor and vulnerable the most. An unprecedented institutional vacuum will likely further delay any agreement on crisis resolution and much needed reforms; this includes prior actions as part of the April 2022 International Monetary Fund (IMF) staff-level agreement (SLA). Divergent views among key stakeholders on how to distribute the financial losses remains the main bottleneck for reaching an agreement on a comprehensive reform agenda. Lebanon needs to urgently adopt a domestic, equitable, and comprehensive solution that is predicated on: (i) addressing upfront the balance sheet impairments, (ii) restoring liquidity, and (iii) adhering to sound global practices of bail-in solutions based on a hierarchy of creditors (starting with banks’ shareholders) that protects small depositors.Publication Cities of Refuge in the Middle East(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2017-09-14)This policy note aims to advance our understanding of urban forced displacement, induced by conflict, by looking at the issue from the perspective of receiving towns and cities. It explores why we need a different approach to addressing urban forced displacement; how to “think differently” about urban forced displacement along the humanitarian-development assistance spectrum; what we can learn from existing urbanization and other relevant experiences to inform humanitarian and development responses; and what “thinking differently” means for local, national, and international development actors. The primary audiences of the note are development and humanitarian practitioners as well as policy makers who are increasingly confronted with the urban dimensions of protracted forced displacement.Publication Classroom Assessment to Support Foundational Literacy(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-03-21)This document focuses primarily on how classroom assessment activities can measure students’ literacy skills as they progress along a learning trajectory towards reading fluently and with comprehension by the end of primary school grades. The document addresses considerations regarding the design and implementation of early grade reading classroom assessment, provides examples of assessment activities from a variety of countries and contexts, and discusses the importance of incorporating classroom assessment practices into teacher training and professional development opportunities for teachers. The structure of the document is as follows. The first section presents definitions and addresses basic questions on classroom assessment. Section 2 covers the intersection between assessment and early grade reading by discussing how learning assessment can measure early grade reading skills following the reading learning trajectory. Section 3 compares some of the most common early grade literacy assessment tools with respect to the early grade reading skills and developmental phases. Section 4 of the document addresses teacher training considerations in developing, scoring, and using early grade reading assessment. Additional issues in assessing reading skills in the classroom and using assessment results to improve teaching and learning are reviewed in section 5. Throughout the document, country cases are presented to demonstrate how assessment activities can be implemented in the classroom in different contexts.