Can the Return of Rural Labor Effectively Stimulate the Demand for Land? Empirical Evidence from Sichuan Province, China

Promoting moderate-scale land management is a crucial pathway for achieving the transformation of agricultural modernization in China. Whether migrant workers with the advantage of human capital can effectively promote moderate scale management is a problem worthy of in-depth discussion. Based on survey data from three counties in Sichuan Province in 2024, this paper empirically analyzes the impact of migrant workers’ return on farmers’ land transfer-in behavior by constructing IV-Probit and IV-Tobit models. The results show that (1) the return of migrant workers significantly promotes the land transfer-in of rural households by enhancing their risk tolerance and increasing the participation of cooperative organizations; (2) however, there is some heterogeneity in these results. The effect of the return of migrant workers in plain areas and economically developed villages on land transfer-in is stronger than that in mountainous areas and economically weak villages. Based on these findings, this paper suggests that differentiated policies should be formulated according to the natural conditions and economic foundations of different regions, making full use of the human capital advantages of returning migrant workers to effectively promote the realization of moderate-scale management among farmers.