Impact of the Household Registration System on Farmers’ Rural Housing Land Use Decisions in China

By using the difference-in-difference method and introducing control variables, this study investigates the effect of the household registration system (hukou) on farmers’ willingness to transfer rural housing land based on survey data of farmers in Chongqing and Wuhan, China. The results show that the effect of household registration system reform is significant at the 1% level, which indicates that household registration system reform significantly influences farmers’ willingness to transfer rural housing land in the experimental area, leading to an increase in the share of farmers willing to transfer such land by 37%. In areas with greater efforts to reform the household registration system, farmers are more willing to transfer rural housing land. Moreover, the per capita non-farm income of rural households and compensation standard have a significantly positive correlation with farmers’ willingness.