Can farmland transfer reduce vulnerability to poverty among the mid-aged and elderly in rural China?

Exploring the influence of farmland transfer on poverty among the mid-aged and elderly rural households is of great value in preventing them from returning to poverty and in solving the problem of rural poverty. Based on the propensity score matching with differences in differences approach, this paper measures and compares the effects of farmland transfer-in and transfer-out on the vulnerability to poverty of the mid-aged and elderly rural households by using the tracking survey of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) in 2015 and 2018. The findings reveal that: (1) The anti-poverty effect of farmland transfer is “asymmetric”. Farmland transfer-in can significantly reduce the vulnerability to poverty of the lessee households, but farmland transfer-out has no such effect. (2) Obvious regional and household differences exist in the anti-poverty effect of farmland transfer. The anti-poverty effects of farmland transfer-in in the eastern and central regions are higher than in other regions. The greater vulnerability to poverty is associated with the more obvious anti-poverty effect of farmland transfer-in. These results benefit the government to strengthen the reforms related to farmland transfer and anti-poverty. •A forward-looking projection of farmland transfer on anti-poverty is important.•We use PSM-DID to test the effect of farmland transfer on vulnerability to poverty.•Farmland transfer-in has anti-poverty effects, but farmland transfer-out does not.•Farmland transfer-in has heterogeneous anti-poverty effects.