Variation of Land-Expropriated Farmers’ Willingness: A Perspective of Employment and Inhabitance

Understanding land-expropriated farmers’ welfare change and the determinants of their willingness to change is very important for sustainable urbanization and social stability in developing countries. However, this issue has been seldom explored in previous studies, especially in China. This paper aims to enrich this field by conducting an empirical study using a household survey in 2014 in Nanjing, a major city in the Yangtze River Delta. The impacts of land expropriation on the variation of land-expropriated farmers’ employment and inhabitance are explored, while the determinants of land-expropriated farmers’ willingness are estimated using ordered logistic regression. Results show that the land-expropriated farmers pay more attention to the changes of employment and inhabitance after land expropriation, rather than land expropriation itself. While employment aspects were key determinants of the farmers’ willingness in 1996, factors relating to inhabitance aspects have become more important nowadays. Moreover, it is necessary to grasp the changing rules of land-expropriated farmers’ interest appeals in order to adjust the compensation and resettlement policies according to local conditions. Thus, this will improve land-expropriated farmers’ willingness. Meanwhile, the government should create a better expectation of employment and inhabitance after land expropriation for farmers. Furthermore, the government should also build a land expropriation information sharing and feedback mechanism in addition to improve the employment and housing security system.