The Impact of Geographical Location of Households’ Residences on the Livelihoods of Households Surrounding Protected Areas: An Empirical Analysis of Seven Nature Reserves Across Three Provinces in China

China has effectively safeguarded biodiversity by building the world’s largest system of nature reserves, but the livelihoods of farmers near the reserves are often not guaranteed. This paper aimed to deeply explore the intrinsic relationship between the geographical location of households and their livelihood outcomes within seven nature reserves across three provinces in China. Innovatively, this study subdivided households’ livelihood outcomes into four patterns: high well-being with high dependency (H-H), high well-being with low dependency (H-L), low well-being with high dependency (L-H), and low well-being with low dependency (L-L), in order to comprehensively analyze the diversity of households’ livelihoods and further reveal the spatial logic and mechanisms underlying regional development imbalances. Methodologically, a combination of quantitative analysis and qualitative research was adopted. Representative villages in the protected area and outside the protected area were selected for semi-structured interviews with the village heads. Meanwhile, farmers were randomly selected in the villages for structured interviews and 1106 questionnaires were collected. Through variance analysis, the study first identified the unique advantages of H-H-pattern households in natural resource utilization. Subsequently, a multinomial logistic model was used to deeply analyze how geographical location (including whether a household was located within a protected area and the distance to markets) affected the transition mechanisms of the other three livelihood outcomes towards the H-H pattern. Based on this, marginal effect analysis was employed to further delineate the specific influence pathways of geographical factor changes on households’ livelihood outcome selection probabilities. The results showed that the geographical location of households’ residences had a significant impact on their livelihood outcomes. For households in the L-L and H-L patterns, proximity to markets could significantly increase the probability of their livelihood transitioning to the H-H pattern. Meanwhile, residing within protected areas significantly promoted the transition of L-L and H-L households to the H-H pattern but showed a certain inhibitory effect on L-H households. Marginal effects analysis further shows that both living in protected areas and reducing distance to markets increase the tendency of households to be highly dependent on natural resources for livelihood outcomes. Compensation policies should be designed according to local conditions, and subsidies for the development of ecotourism and other service industries should be increased for rural households in protected areas to ensure sustainable development rather than transfer payments.