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IZA Discussion Paper No. 18569
April 2026
Sowing Seeds of Mobility: The Gendered Impact of Land Reform

We study how land market frictions affect men and women differently during structural transformation, exploiting two major Chinese land reforms that strengthened farmers' rental rights. Using large-language-model text analysis, we construct a county-level reform index and combine it with large panel data to identify causal effects. The reforms shift rural women out of agriculture more than men and reduce urban women's employment and wages relative to men. A multisector model with intra-household labor allocation rationalizes these findings: gender-neutral land market frictions act as gender-specific mobility barriers, and their removal disproportionately accelerates women's transition into non-agricultural employment.

Kommunikation
Mark Fallak
mark.fallak@liser.lu
+352 585-855-526
World of Labour
Olga Nottmeyer
olga.nottmeyer-ext@liser.lu
+352 585-855-501
Netzwerkkoordination
Christina Gathmann
christina.gathmann@liser.lu

Das IZA@LISER-Netzwerk ist eine weltweite Gemeinschaft für exzellente Forschung in der Arbeitsmarktökonomie und angrenzenden Fachgebieten. Nach dem Wechsel von Bonn wird das Netzwerk nun am Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) koordiniert.

Über das IZA@LISER Network
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