The influence of household-level factors on farmers' Willingness of agricultural land circulation in China

In the past decade, urbanization has become the biggest driving force for China's economic growth and social development, and the trend of rural land circulation related to this has become increasingly obvious. Land circulation could help sending agricultural labor to cities, raising the level of civilization in rural China and providing a spatial basis for urbanization. China's urbanization development requires land circulation, but the current phenomenon of harming farmers' interests in land transfer strengthens the social security function of land, and reduces the willingness of farmers to transfer land. The low willingness constrains the speed and efficiency of land transfer, which in turn will hinder the urbanization process. Studying the influencing factors of farmers' willingness can help us correctly understand the problem of land transfer in China. Households are the basic organizations for farmers to participate in social activities, and their structure, stability have great impact on households’ transfer willingness. The dataset used in this study is the survey data of the “Thousand Investigators & hundred Villages” social survey held by the School of Public Administration of Renmin University of China in 2017. The research strategy of this study is desk research of secondary quantitative data. The Data analysis method is Probit model. The findings and results show that there are 8 household-level factors have a significant impact on farmers' willingness to land transfer through five different mechanisms. Village cadre experience / land transfer experience has a negative and positive impact on land transfer willingness through the perception of circulation risk. Non-rural residence ratio and age of the head of the household positively affects transfer willingness through family preference for land income. Agricultural labor ratio and actual managing area ratio have a negative impact on transfer willingness through active dependence on farmland. Family decision mode influences the transfer willingness through the procedural cost of the decision. The willingness to transfer households in democratic decision-making is low, and the willingness of dictatorships to transfer land is high. The government could take some measures to increase the willingness of household to transfer land. Firstly, strengthen the construction of rural social security systems and reduce farmers' passive dependence on land. Secondly, encourage the “active dependence” farmers to transfer land through vocational training. Thirdly, strengthen agricultural modernization, and encourage efficient “active dependent” households to form scale operations. Fourthly, increase information disclosure, promote land transfer policies, regulate the behavior of village collectives and local governments, and reduce farmers' concerns about land transfer risks. Finally, regulate the land transfer process, strengthen the supervision of the land transfer market, form a reasonable farmland transfer price in the circulation market, and increase farmers' income preferences for land transfer.