Mechanisms Through Which Farmland Property Rights Strength Influences Rural Social Sustainability: A Dual-Outcomes Assessment of Income Growth and Inequality in China

Achieving rural social sustainability requires both income growth and a reduction in rural income inequality. Strengthening farmland property rights is widely expected to contribute to these goals, yet the evidence remains limited. Building on a “property rights–factor allocation–income” framework, this study uses rural micro panel data from CHARLS (2011–2018) and combines two-way fixed effects with a chain multiple-mediation model to examine how farmland property rights strength (FPRS) relates to these outcomes. The results show the following: (i) FPRS has a dual total effect, raising household per capita income (0.683) while reducing the Gini coefficient ( − 0.032 ); (ii) effect decomposition indicates that the impacts are dominated by the direct effect, accounting for 96.47% and 98.37% of the total effects on per capita income and the Gini coefficient, respectively; (iii) the indirect transmission is structurally asymmetric, with income growth relying on seven “independent–chain” mediation paths involving land, labor, and capital, whereas inequality convergence operates only through farmland transfer-out and (iv) stronger property rights further reshape income composition by activating both agricultural and non-agricultural income through differentiated direct effects and mediated paths. This study identifies underlying mechanisms and offers policy implications for strengthening the direct effect of farmland property rights reform and improving factor allocation channels to achieve rural social sustainability outcomes.