Empowering landscapes: women’s formal land rights and their impact on rural investments and land transfer in China

Abstract

This study examines how formally registering women as landowners affects land transfer and investment decisions in rural China. While secure tenure is a well-established driver of agricultural productivity and rural growth, its gendered impacts remain underexplored. Drawing on nationally representative data from 17 provinces and employing fixed-effects models, instrumental-variable estimation, and propensity score matching, we identify a causal relationship between women’s formal land rights and rural economic behavior. Households in which women hold registered titles are 8 percentage points more likely to lease out land and 6.9 percentage points more likely to invest in land improvements, with substantially higher investment levels. These effects are not uniform: they are strongest in high-output provinces with active land markets and ample female off-farm employment, and much weaker in less dynamic regions. The findings highlight an overlooked dimension of tenure reform—its gendered effects—showing that formal recognition of women’s land rights can expand rental-market supply and spur agricultural investment, provided that supportive market and institutional conditions are in place. This evidence underscores the need to embed gender equity into land reform strategies to advance inclusive and sustainable rural development.