Research on the Impact of Rural Land Transfer on Non-Farm Employment of Farm Households: Evidence from Hubei Province, China

Agricultural scale operations and industrialization promote the transfer of the rural labor force to the industry sector, and the non-farm employment of farmers plays a great role in increasing their income and reducing poverty. It is of great significance to explore the non-farm employment of farmers for the governance of relative poverty and the achievement of common prosperity. The propensity score matching (PSM) and generalized propensity score matching (GPSM) were used to analyze the impact of rural land transfer on farm households’ non-farm employment. According to the PSM estimation, compared to the farmers’ land not transferred, the rural land transfer significantly increased the proportion of non-farm employment personnel in farm households and the months of per year non-farm employment per person. The total land transfer, paddy land transfer and dry land transfer could significantly increase the proportion of non-farm employment personnel in farm households by 0.074, 0.029 and 0.085 units, respectively, and could significantly increase the months of per year non-farm employment per person by 0.604, 0.394 and 0.617 units, respectively. According to the GPSM estimation, different types of rural land transfer areas have significant positive effects on the proportion of non-farm workers and the months of per year non-farm employment per person, and show an obvious increasing trend of returns to scale, that is, the proportion of non-farm workers and the months of per year non-farm employment per person of farmers are higher than the increase in rural land transfer area. Additionally, the return to scale effect of dry land transfer area is more obvious. In order to raise the income of farm households and narrow the gap between urban and rural areas, the land transfer system can be further improved, urbanization with the county town as an important carrier can be vigorously promoted, the participation of farm households in non-farm employment in the local area can be promoted and the support policy system for non-farm employment of rural labor force can be improved.