Rural Migrant Workers in Urban China: Does Rural Land Still Matter?

The purpose of this study is to test the response of rural–urban migration to land endowment while recognizing the heterogeneity of land tenure security perceptions. Based on the survey data of 751 migrant workers in Nanjing City, the latent class model identifies the secured group and unsecured group, with a particular focus on how heterogeneous concepts of land tenure security mediate the above relationships. Empirical modeling explores how land endowment affects household labor distribution and individual migration decisions, taking the heterogeneity of tenure expectations into account. The key findings reveal the following: (1) an inverse U-shaped relationship between land endowment and household labor distribution, but not between land endowment and individual migrant decisions; (2) farm households who perceive land tenure as unsecured tend to send fewer household members as job-seeking migrants, even as their land endowment increases; (3) however, individual migration decisions under conditions of a secured land tenure reduce the risk of losing land and induce migrant workers to stay in cities. The findings contribute to advancing the institutional analysis of the impact of land endowment on household labor allocation and how land tenure security affects immigration decisions, providing empirical evidence for China’s rural revitalization policies, which would support reforms that secure land tenure, such as the second-round contracting renewal policy and the rural revitalization plan in China.