Land Tenure Policy and Women Off-Farm Employment in Rural China

Using the data from three waves (1995, 2002 and 2008) of the Chinese Household Income Project (CHIP), which covers nine provinces in China, this paper investigates the impact of land tenure security on farmers’ labor market outcomes in rural China, especially for women’ s labor market behavior. To identify the effect of land tenure security, this paper used difference-in-differences strategy to control for time invariant heterogeneity, and a number of observed time-varying economic characteristics for its validity. The paper finds that in response to more security land rights, both women and men increase their probability of wage employment participation and individual income.