The impact of urban-rural residents’ life quality gap on the cultivated land transfer

Cultivated land transfer serves as an efficient way to mitigate the escalating issue of cultivated land abandonment due to labor migration driven by the urban-rural gap, while also ensuring national food security. Nevertheless, the impact of how urban-rural resident’ life quality gap (RLQG) affect cultivated land transfer decision-making remains unclear. This study developed a theoretical framework that links urban-rural RLQG and cultivated land transfer and empirically investigated the causal relationships between these variables using a nationally representative dataset from China and employing the Random Forest method. Additionally, the heterogeneity of the impact across different geomorphic regions was also explored. The results indicate that disparities in economic conditions (e.g., cash deposits, durable goods, consumer expenditure, etc.) between urban and rural areas significantly impact cultivated land transfer decision-making, particularly in plain regions. To promote cultivated land transfer, the hilly regions should prioritize the reduction of the employment service gap, while the disparity in education and health levels in the mountain regions plays a leading role. Furthermore, the cultivated land transfer can be facilitated when the urban-rural residents’ life quality equalizes or RLQG widens sufficiently. Therefore, this study emphasizes the importance of considering the regional socio-economic environment difference caused by geomorphic variations when formulating policies aimed at narrowing the urban-rural RLQG and promoting cultivated land transfer. Furthermore, policy-makers may redirect focus towards alternative indicators for balancing urban-rural RLQG and cultivated land transfers in cases where a particular indicator proves ineffective.