The impact of family capital on farmers’ participation in farmland transfer: Evidence from rural China

Abstract

Family capital provides diverse and effective resources for production and livelihood of farmers, and thus profoundly determines farmers’ behavior in the decision-making process, yet the specific impact of family capital on farmers’ participation in farmland transfer has not been adequately examined. Based on a theoretical analysis, this paper divides family capital into four dimensions: human capital, economic capital, social capital, and cultural capital, and empirically analyzes the impact of different types of family capital on farmers’ participation in farmland transfer by using data on farmers in the 2018 China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) database. The results show that human capital, economic capital, and cultural capital all have significant impacts on both farmland transfer-out and transfer-in behavior, while social capital only plays a significant role in farmland transfer in. In order to accelerate the development process of farmland transfer in China, it is necessary to actively guide surplus rural labor towards non-agricultural employment, improve the farmland system and build a land transfer trading platform to promote the transfer of farmland to households with a good agricultural base, and strengthen social security construction to reinforce the enthusiasm of farmers engaging in land transfer.