Research on Welfare Changes of Farmers with Different Livelihood Assets after Rural Residential Land Exit in the Context of “Tripartite Entitlement System”: A Case Study of Fuhong Town in Qingbaijiang District, Chengdu, China

Abstract

By referring to the sustainable livelihood analysis and capability approach and taking Fuhong town in Qingbaijiang district, China, as an example, this paper classifies the livelihood assets of farm households before their residential land exit using the livelihood asset quantification method, and then analyzes the changes in their welfare after exit from residential land by adopting fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. The research results indicate that (1) the sample farm households are classified into three types, i.e., richness type, balance type, and shortage type, according to the configuration of livelihood assets, including human capital, natural capital, physical capital, financial capital, and social capital, before the exit from residential land; (2) after the exit from the residential land, the welfare of farm households has generally been improved, but the extent of such improvements varies from type to type; (3) there is a certain relationship between the configuration of livelihood assets before the exit from residential land and the welfare level after such an exit. It is suggested that importance should be attached to the heterogeneity or level of differentiation of farm households, and furthermore, measures should be taken so as to ensure that the welfare level will not be downgraded after farm households exit from their residential land.

1. Introduction

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the country’s residential land system has played a fundamental role in ensuring that farmers have housing to live in, maintaining social stability and harmony, etc., and the system has also been regarded as a critical arrangement influencing the country’s politics and society [1,2]. However, the problems and challenges confronting the existing system of residential land are becoming more and more prominent, alongside urbanization being carried forward and changes in social structure in urban and rural areas. Such problems are mainly reflected in the fact that a lot of residential land is left unused or is used at low efficiency; the asset value of residential land has not been utilized sufficiently, and hidden circulation cannot be stopped despite repeated bans [3,4,5]. The explorative implementation of a voluntary exit from residential land with compensation is an efficient approach to the abovementioned problems [6]. In 2015, China started to carry out pilot reforms in rural land requisition, collective commercial construction land marketing, and the rural residential land system in 33 counties (county-level cities and districts) all over the country. Specifically, the reform of the rural land-requisition system aims to strictly define the scope of land requisitioned for public interest, develop a catalogue of land requisition, standardize the requisition procedures, and provide more appropriate and diverse safeguards for farmers whose land has been requisitioned. Rural collective commercial construction land is the rural collective land in stock specified to be used for industrial, mining, storage, commercial service, and other commercial purposes in overall land-use planning and urban and rural planning. The reform of rural collective commercial construction land marketing aims to improve the property rights system of rural collective commercial construction land, endow it with the functions of transfer, lease, and equity ownership, and establish rules and regulations for the market transactions of collective commercial construction land. The reform of the rural residential land system aims to improve the rights protection and acquisition of residential land, and explore its paid use and voluntary exit with compensation. Especially in the aspect of the reform and perfection of rural residential land system, a great deal of practical exploration has been conducted around the mode and method of voluntary exit from residential land in all these pilot areas, and remarkable effects have been achieved. The “No. 1 Central Document” of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in 2018, based on the successful experiences of the pilot areas, officially proposed exploration into the “Tripartite Entitlement System” for the reform of the ownership, qualification, and use rights of residential land. In terms of ownership right, the residential land is still owned by the rural collective, and the rural collective economic organization exercises the ownership right on behalf of the collective. This is an inherent requirement for strictly maintaining the principle of public land ownership in China. The qualification right is separated from the use right and becomes an independent right owned by individual farmers who are members of the rural collective. This is the institutional dependence for protecting the interests of farmers and maintaining the harmony and stability of rural society. The right to use rural residential land and houses built on such land can be transferred under certain conditions, which allows the land to be used for agritainment, homestay, rural tourism, and other business forms through independent, cooperative, or entrusted operation in accordance with laws and regulations. It contributes to the efficient use of rural construction land in stock, increasing farmers’ property income, motivating rural development, and promoting the current rural revitalization strategy. This significant innovation in both theory and practice has specified the guidelines for the intensification of the reform of residential land system in recent times, and enriched the meaning of exiting from residential land. Residential land is a special institutional arrangement to protect the basic right of residence of farm households in China. It has the characteristics of allowing only one house per household, free but limited use for an indefinite period, and limited transfer between collective members. Before the implementation of the “Tripartite Entitlement System”, exit from residential land meant completely giving up the right to use the residential land as a rural collective member for lump-sum compensation, and disqualification from reapplying for residential land. The creation of the qualification right allows farmers to choose to temporarily give up the use right while reserving the qualification right, obtaining continuous benefits from the transfer of use right and acquiring the use right again after a certain number of years or when special conditions are met. This not only endows farmers with a self-decision right with respect to exiting from their residential land, but also protects their lawful rights and interest with respect to their exit.

China’s dualistic land system and differences in urban and rural household residential registration create an inflexibility in the utilization of rural construction land [7]. With the aim of revitalizing rural construction land in stock and improving the utilization of rural land resources, the Chinese government is actively implementing the pilot program of voluntary exit from residential land with compensation to manifest the asset value of residential land and ensure sufficient land for rural industry revitalization. The community of scholars has conducted a great deal of research into the issues related to exiting from residential land. On a macro level, the research mainly includes the establishment and perfection of the system of exiting from residential land [8,9], the analysis and comparison of exit modes [10,11], the measurement and calculation of compensation for exit, and the distribution of value-added income [12,13]; on a micro level, this research focused on farmers’ willingness to exit and the factors influencing their willingness [14,15], and the change in welfare after their exit [16,17]. The measurement of the welfare of farm households and the changes in their income and loss after exiting from residential land relate to the degree of their satisfaction to the relevant policy, constituting an important measure of the governance capacity and credibility of the government. Moreover, these two factors have an indirect impact upon the willingness and enthusiasm of farmers who take a wait-and-see attitude to exit from residential land, providing practical guidance for improving the standards and plans of compensation for exit, and developing targeted follow-up support policies to avoid a reduction in the welfare of farm households and ensure their sustainable livelihood. Most previous studies focus on establishing an evaluation index system for the welfare of land-lost farm households and comparing their welfare levels before and after land loss. In general, the description of welfare has gone beyond the single dimension of material wealth to include a range of factors, such as income and health [18], residential conditions [19], community environment [20], social security [21], quality of social relations [22], employment opportunities [23], and psychological factors [24]. Moreover, various concepts, such as “happiness”, “satisfaction”, and “comfort”, have been developed [25,26,27]. Relevant empirical studies have shown that land requisition has a negative impact on the health of farmers due to income and psychological effects [28]. Land-requisitioned farmers experienced improved economic and residential conditions, but reduced social security and worse psychological conditions [29]. Farmers become urban residents after selling their land. However, they may not enjoy the same level of welfare as original urban residents [30]. Land-lost farmers must seek off-farm jobs or self-employment, but none of them succeed, which poses a threat to their wellbeing [31]. In rapidly urbanizing parts of India, farmers saw a dramatic increase in employment and rental income, but the majority of land-lost farmers agreed that after the land acquisition or sale, spending on children’s education followed by household items, gadgets, shopping and entertainment activities, and social events increased massively [32]. In urban fringes of Bahir Dar (Ethiopia), land expropriation in the area has led to a shift to off-farm income for land-expropriated farmers, and an increase in their household expenditure on staple foods compared to other expenditure types, including farm inputs [33]. In Mongolia, improved access to public services and labor wages for land-requisitioned farmers was reported [34]. In China, farmers were found to enjoy better welfare after their exit from residential land to live in a centralized manner; household economic status and social security were the main factors affecting their welfare; and their focus of attention was old-age security and housing quality [35]. Clearly, land loss has both positive and negative effects on the welfare of farmers. However, it should be noted that most of the previous studies examined land-lost farm households as a homogeneous whole without considering their differentiated characteristics. There are indeed some studies classifying farm households according to certain variables, such as the proportion of household income (agricultural versus non-agricultural income) and the location of original residence (suburbs versus outer suburbs), to reveal the difference in welfare that might be caused by the differentiation of the land-loss farm households [17,35]. However, such classifications are still too simple to fully describe the characteristics of the households.

Based on the above analysis, by referring to the Sustainable Livelihood Approach (SLA) developed by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom and the theory of capability approach of Amartya Sen, this paper takes Fuhong town in Qingbaijiang district of Chengdu, China, as an example, classifies the livelihood of farm households before their exit from residential land by adopting the livelihood asset quantification method, and then analyzes the change and difference in welfare of farm households with different types of livelihood assets after their exit from residential land, with a view to providing a reference for promoting the sustainable livelihood of farm households who have exited from residential land, improving their welfare levels, formulating a differentiated policy around compensation for exit, and perfecting the system of exit from residential land with compensation.

2. Research Area and Data

Fuhong town is located in the south of Qingbaijiang district, Chengdu, China (see Figure 1), and in geographical terms, the town is situated in the middle section of Longquan Mountain and the northeast of Chengdu Plain, which is an important section of the Longquan Mountain-Chain Tourism Corridor. Fuhong town has an area of 39.36 km², including a cultivated land area of 26.00 km², accounting for 66.06% of the total area, and a rural residential land area of 4.86 km², accounting for 12.35% of the total area. This township has nine administrative villages including Minzhu, Jinbu, and Xinghua, within its jurisdiction, totaling 134 villager groups. With a census-registered population of 30,220, including an agricultural population of 28,289, the township is a typical hilly agricultural village and town. Over the recent years, Fuhong town has actively carried out exploration into the restructuring of population and land through the consolidation of collectively-owned construction land and exiting from residential land with compensation, aiming to revitalize the rural land resources. The township introduced non-governmental funds from the Heshengjiayuan company, Qinghe company, etc., successively and invested a total of RMB 1.48 billion in 10 land-consolidation projects, with a total of 810,000 m² of new-type rural neighborhood. Through these measures, the town realized the trans-administrative-village centralization of residence of farmers from nine villages, with a total of 23,000 residents resettled and the urbanization rate increased from 2% to 81%. Furthermore, through the re-development and use of the collectively-owned construction land, the town introduced 46 business projects, including “My Pastoral”, “Mingguohui”, and “Tianxiao Equestrian Sport Club”, and boosted the development of new rural industries and industrial formats with great efforts, opening up a characteristic way of enhancing in situ urbanization through the comprehensive consolidation of land to achieve city–industry integration.

In the period from June to October in 2019, our research team conducted an on-the-spot survey in seven villages in Fuhong township, including Minzhu, Ziku, Xianfeng, Lanchong, Xingfu, Xinghua, and Jinbu. We handed out 320 copies of our questionnaire at random by holding face-to-face interviews, and collected 314 (98%) of them back. Those surveyed were all farm households who lived in centralized neighborhoods after they exited from residential land, and the survey involved basic information on their household, economic condition, housing conditions, social security, community conditions, etc. After processing the data by deleting invalid questionnaire pieces in which there was no key information or there were logical contradictions, we obtained 301 (96% of the total) valid questionnaire copies.

3. Research Framework and Methods

The research framework constructed for this study consisted of three parts: classification of farm households, measurement of welfare, and change in welfare (see Figure 2).

3.1. Classification of Farm Households Based on SLA Framework

The SLA framework developed by DFID consists of the vulnerability context, livelihood assets, transforming structures and processes, livelihood strategies, and livelihood outcomes [36]. Like all frameworks, it is a simplification. The framework dos not attempt to provide an exact representation of reality. It does, however, endeavor to provide a way of thinking about the livelihoods of people. In other words, it attempts to elaborate how the farm households use the favorable policy factors in transforming structures and processes to improve their livelihood assets and adopt better livelihood strategies to achieve expected livelihood outcomes based on their initial livelihood asset endowments in a vulnerability context [37]. In this framework, the livelihood assets come in five main varieties: human capital, natural capital, physical capital, financial capital, and social capital. Due to the differences in the initial livelihood asset endowments of different farm households, they will have different improvements of livelihood assets, as well as different optimal livelihood strategies, after their exit from residential land, which might lead to differences in their welfare changes. To this end, based on the actual conditions of the survey area and in light of previous research findings [38,39,40], a quantitative evaluation index system for livelihood assets (see

Table 1. Quantitative evaluation index system of livelihood assets of farm households.

Variety of Assets	Evaluation Index and Weight	Evaluation Method
Human capital	Highest education degree of family members/0.05983	Primary school = 1; Junior high school = 2; Senior high school = 3; College = 4; University and above = 5
	Whole labor force of family/0.01524	Number of working family members/family population
	Health status of main labor force/0.00265	Disability = 1; Suffering serious disease = 2; Chronic disease = 3; Health = 4
	Have obtained technical support/0.07553	Yes = 1; No = 0
Natural capital	Per capita area of cultivated farmland/0.01299	Total area of cultivated farmland/family population
Physical capital	Per capita housing area/0.02549	Actual figure
	Number of owned vehicles/0.12836	Actual figure
	Have bought housing in urban areas /0.17982	Yes = 1; No = 0
Financial capital	Household income per capita/0.03749	Less than RMB 10,000 = 1; RMB 10,000–20,000 = 2; RMB 20,000–30,000 = 3; RMB 30,000–40,000 = 4; More than RMB 40,000 = 5
	Opportunity for obtaining loans (borrowing)/0.10450	Obtaining = 1; Having not obtained = 0
Social capital	Number of households of relatives and friends/0.00335	Less than 1 = 1; 2 = 2; 3 = 3; 4 = 4; 5 and more =5
	Is there a village cadre in family/0.29611	Yes = 1; No = 0
	Have participated in social activities or organizations/0.05864	Yes = 1; No = 0

) was established to classify the farm households so as to fully describe their differentiated characteristics. The weight of the index for each livelihood asset is determined by the entropy method. The original data are normalized using the positive index formula of the range-normalization method. The total score of livelihood assets is calculated by weighting all the indices. On the basis of the K-means clustering of the total score of the livelihood assets, we classify the surveyed farm households into three types: richness type, balance type, and shortage type. The calculation is as follows:

(1)

Normalization of the data

$$X_{ij}=\frac{x_{ij}-\min (x_j)}{\max (x_j)-\min (x_j)}$$

(1)

where X_ij is the normalized value of the original data; x_ij is the variable value of index j for farm household i; max(x_j) is the maximum value of index j; min(x_j) is the minimum value of index j; i = 1, 2,…, 301; and j = 1, 2,…, 13.

(2)

Calculation of information entropy

$$p_{ij}=\frac{X_{ij}}{{\displaystyle \sum _{i=1}^n{X}_{ij}}}$$

(2)

$$e_j=-\frac{1}{\ln (n)}{\displaystyle \sum _{i=1}^n(p_{ij}\times \ln p_{ij})}$$

(3)

where p_ij is the proportion of the normalized value of index j for farm household i in that index, and e_j is the information entropy.

(3)

Determination of the weight

$$w_j=\frac{1-e_j}{{\displaystyle \sum _{j=1}^m(1-e_j)}}$$

(4)

where w_j is the weight of index j.

(4)

Total score of livelihood assets

$$s_i={\displaystyle \sum _{i=1}^n{\displaystyle \sum _{j=1}^m(X_{ij}\times w_j)}}$$

(5)

where s_i is the total score of livelihood assets for farm household i.

3.2. Measurement of Welfare Level of Farm Households after Exit from Residential Land Based on the Capability Approach

In the 1980s–1990s, Amartya Sen put forward the capability approach theory for evaluating individual welfare [41,42]. This theory redefines the concept of welfare by describing individual welfare in terms of what an individual can actually do and who they can become. This theory has two core concepts: functionings and capabilities. Functionings refer to a variety of things and states that an individual believes are worth doing or achieving, such as having a healthy body, having a comfortable residence, maintaining good interpersonal and working relationships, and being able to obtain appropriate leisure and education. If the acquired functionings constitute the welfare of an individual, then capabilities refer to an individual’s real access to welfare and freedom of choice, and are a collection of various possible functioning vectors. Therefore, welfare can be considered the combination of welfare functionings and capabilities, which takes into account not only current welfare, but also potential and possible welfare. According to Sen’s theory and in light of the existing research findings [7,17,35,40], this paper takes into account the actual conditions of the survey area, and investigates the welfare changes of farm households after their exit from residential land in terms of economic conditions, residential conditions, social security, community conditions, psychological feeling, and development opportunity (see

Table 2. The evaluation index system for welfare changes of farm households.

Functioning	Evaluation Index	Variable Type
Economic conditions	Agricultural income	Q
	Net income	Q
	Living expenditure	Q
Residential conditions	House structure	D
	House area	Q
	House quality	Q
	Degree of satisfaction with residence	Q
Social security	Pension insurance	D
	Medical insurance	D
	Satisfaction degree with social security	Q
Community conditions	Public order situations	Q
	Sanitary condition	Q
	Noise condition	Q
	Entertainment	Q
Psychological feeling	Neighborhood relation	Q
	Adaptation to life	Q
	Satisfaction degree to exit	Q
Development opportunity	Development expectation	Q
	Employment opportunity	Q

Notes: In terms of the variable types, Q is a qualitative dummy variable that takes a value of 5 to 1, with 5 indicating the best and 1 the worst level; and D is a dichotomous dummy variable, with 1 = yes/changed and 0 = no/unchanged.

).

(1)

Economic conditions. Economic conditions are recognized as one of the most important factors influencing welfare [43]. The economic conditions relate to the farmers’ vital interest, constitute the prime factor directly affecting farmers’ living standards, and reflect the welfare level of farmers. In the context of increasingly differentiated livelihood, the livelihood and income sources of farm households become more and more diversified. Farmers no longer live only on land cultivation, and most of them will increase their household income by working as immigrant laborers, holding concurrent jobs, engaging in individual business activities or other work. Therefore, this paper analyzes the change in welfare of farm households by adopting three indices: agricultural income, net income, and living expenditure.

(2)

Residential conditions. Just as the term implies, residential condition refers to the conditions of the housing of farmers. Housing is not only the sustainer of farmers’ daily life, but also spiritual sustenance for them. After the farm households in the surveyed areas exited from their residential land, local government ensured the residential conditions for farmers by encouraging them to move to new neighborhoods in towns or through centralized resettlement at the original sites. In both of the above circumstances, the residential conditions of the farmers will change: the location of their housing will be shifted from scattered and out-of-the-way villages to towns, and the housing structure from simply constructed brick-wood structures to strong brick and concrete structures; and the residential conditions in new neighborhoods may be superior. Therefore, in this paper, the housing structure, area, and quality and the degree of satisfaction with present housing quality are adopted as the indices for evaluating the farmers’ welfare related to residential condition.

(3)

Social security. Residential land underwrites social security for farm households, and provides basic living security for them, being their most important production factor. Owing to the duality of the Chinese household registration system, the social security standard for registered rural residents is much lower than that of registered urban residents. After exiting from residential land, it is particularly urgent to establish a systematic and perfect social security system to substitute for the original social security functioning undertaken by the residential land, and such a system involves the issue of whether the basic living demand of farm households is ensured and the difficulty of getting medical service can be solved after they exit from residential land, whether the demand of farmers for old-age provision can be ensured after their exit from residential land, and whether their exit from residential land can bring higher social security, etc. For these reasons, this paper highlights pension insurance, medical insurance, and the degree of satisfaction with social security as the welfare evaluation indices for evaluating social security for farm households.

(4)

Community conditions. There will always be a thorough change in the residential condition of farm households in the wake of their exit from residential land. The government of Fuhong township has resettled the farm households of out-of-the-way villages in town in a centralized way under the banner of “Living in Neighborhood”, with the in situ urbanization realized. An agreeable community condition is an important vector of attraction encouraging farm households to exit from their residential land. The extent of the perfection of infrastructure, comfort of living, and convenience in working and living in neighborhoods directly determine the living quality of the farmers, and will then affect the degree of satisfaction with the welfare for their exit. Therefore, this paper selects public order situations, sanitary conditions, noise conditions, and entertainment as the indices for evaluating the conditions of neighborhoods where farm households live in a centralized way.

(5)

Psychological feeling. Psychological feeling is also an important part of the welfare of farm households who have exited from residential land; in terms of changes in welfare of farm households, the change in material conditions must be sufficiently taken into consideration, and in addition, close attention should be paid to the change in their psychological feeling. After farm households exit from their residential land, their lifestyle, life rhythm, and quality change greatly; whether the farmers can adapt to this new life and get along well with new neighbors after the exit and how much they are satisfied with the policy for exit from residential land will directly influence the welfare of those farmers. Therefore, this paper selects neighborhood relations, adaptation to life, and degree of satisfaction with exiting from residential land as the welfare indices for evaluating the psychological feeling of farmers.

(6)

Development opportunity. Development opportunity is the opportunity that farmers may obtain for employment or starting a business. When farm households exit from their residential land, they give up the opportunities of their self-employed farming job, while centralized residence brings them the convenience of public service and facility as well as the great development opportunities in urban areas, providing them with not only more diversified employment opportunities, but also opportunities for starting business for those who have such intentions. The employment status of farmers before and after their exit from residential land has always been the focus of the research into changes in welfare. Their employment status not only directly affects the economic sources of farmers, but also has an indirect impact on their psychological feeling. Therefore, this paper adopts development expectations and employment opportunities as the welfare indices for evaluating the development opportunities of farm households.

As the welfare level is characterized by subjectivity, complexity, and ambiguity, it is feasible to employ fuzzy comprehensive evaluation. The calculation is as follows:

(1)

Selection of membership function. The welfare status of farmers is represented by a fuzzy set x. The welfare index that may change after exit from residential land is R (see Table 2). Thus, the fuzzy function of the welfare of farm household n is:

$$R_n=\left\{x,{\mu }_R(x)\right\}$$

(6)

where ${\mu }_R(x)$ is the membership of x to R. It takes a value of between 0 and 1, whereby the larger the value, the higher the welfare. It is generally believed that a membership of 1 indicates the highest welfare, 0 the lowest welfare, and 0.5 a neither-high-nor-low fuzzy state of welfare. It should be noted that this paper is concerned with the changes in welfare, not absolute welfare levels. Therefore, for welfare index quantification, values are assigned according to the relative welfare changes, such as increased a lot/decreased a lot, increased/decreased, and very satisfied/not very satisfied. Therefore, a membership of greater than 0.5 can be considered to indicate an increase in welfare, and a decrease otherwise.

Let x_i be the functioning subset i of farm household welfare, and x_ij be the evaluation index j of functioning i, then the primary index of farm household welfare is x = [x₁₁, x₁₂,..., x_ij]. This paper involves two types of index variables: qualitative dummy variable (Q) and dichotomous dummy variable (D).

When the index is a qualitative dummy variable (Q), it is quantified according to the attribute factors of the variable. The membership function is specified as:

$$\mu (x_{ij})=\left\{\begin{array}{cc}0& 0\le x_{ij}\le x_{ij}^{\min }\hfill \\ \frac{x_{ij}-x_{ij}^{\min }}{x_{ij}^{\max }-x_{ij}^{\min }}& x_{ij}^{\min }<x_{ij}<x_{ij}^{\max }\hfill \\ 1& x_{ij}\ge x_{ij}^{\max }\hfill \end{array}\right.$$

(7)

where $x_{ij}^{\min }$ and $x_{ij}^{\max }$ are the minimum and maximum values of the primary index j in the functioning subset i of the farm household, respectively. A larger value of $\mu (x_{ij})$ indicates higher welfare.

The dichotomous dummy variable (D) generally has only two states: yes and no. Its membership is specified as: $\mu (x_{ij})$ = A (A = 1 for yes/changed; A = 0 for no/unchanged).

(2)

Determination of weight. After determining the membership of the primary indices, the weighting function used in previous work is adopted [44]:

$$w_{ij}={\left[\overline{\mu (x_{ij})}\right]}^{-0.5}$$

(8)

$$\overline{\mu (x_{ij})}=\frac{1}{n}{\displaystyle \sum _{i=1}^n\mu (x_{ij})}$$

(9)

where $\overline{\mu (x_{ij})}$ is the mean of index j in the functioning subset i of farm household n.

(3)

Calculation of membership of welfare functionings. After determining the membership and weight of the primary indices, the membership and comprehensive membership of each welfare functioning are calculated using the following formula:

$$R={\displaystyle \sum _{j=1}^k\overline{\mu (x_{ij})}}\times \frac{w_{ij}}{{\displaystyle \sum _{j=1}^k{w}_{ij}}}$$

(10)

where R is the membership of welfare functionings, and k is the number of indices included in the functioning subset i.

4. Results

4.1. Differentiation Characteristics of Farm Households

(1)

The type of farm households with rich assets: among the survey samples, the farm households of this type totaled 67, or 22.26% of the samples, which is the smallest portion (see

Table 3. Descriptive statistics for livelihood assets of different types of farm households.

Items	Richness Type (Sample = 67)	Balance Type (Sample = 94)	Shortage Type (Sample = 140)
Highest education degree of family members	2.82	2.59	2.23
Whole labor force of family	0.68	0.64	0.45
Health status of main labor force	3.84	3.78	3.54
Have obtained technical support	0.73	0.62	0.33
Per capita area of cultivated farmland	1.37	1.34	1.42
Per capita housing area	218	184	135
Number of owned vehicles	0.58	0.44	0.13
Have bought housing in urban areas	0.48	0.21	0.06
Household income per capita	4.19	2.74	2.16
Opportunity for obtaining loans (borrowing)	0.91	0.45	0.11
Number of households of relatives and friends	4.39	4.45	4.54
Whether there is village cadre in family	0.16	0.07	0.02
Have participated in social activities or organizations	0.85	0.72	0.38

Notes: All values are means.

). Most of the income of this type of farm household comes from businesses other than agriculture, with a high proportion of non-farming income, a higher level of economic income, stronger professional skills, and more employment opportunities. A total of 32 households of this type have bought housing in urban areas with a superior economic condition, and in 11 of them there are members of village cadres or staff of government-sponsored institutions or enterprises, and they have extensive social connections. The farm households of this type live mainly on human assets and financial assets; most of them are self-employed with individually-owned businesses or are starting their own businesses. This type of farm household has the optimum configuration of livelihood assets.

(2)

Farm households of the balance type: among the survey samples, the farm households of this type totaled 94, or 31.23% of the samples (see Table 3). The five varieties of livelihood assets of this type are well balanced, and generally, one or two members of each of such families earn income by engaging in odd jobs locally, a side occupation, or working in nearby towns. Their agricultural and non-farming incomes are approximately equal.

(3)

Farm households of the shortage type: among the survey samples, there are 140 households of this type, making up 46.51% of the total, which is the largest proportion (see Table 3). Apart from natural assets, households of this type are short of all the other four types of assets, and the members of such families are mainly low-income people without skills, including older-aged and elderly persons of no family. Their household incomes are low, and they live mainly on traditional agriculture and social welfare and security, with very low non-farming income or even without non-farming income.

4.2. Change in Welfare of Farm Households with Different Livelihood Assets after Exit from Residential Land

4.2.1. General Change in Welfare of Farm Households

Generally speaking, the analysis results show that (see

Table 4. Fuzzy evaluation results on welfare changes of farm households with different types of livelihood assets after exit from rural residential land.

Functioning and Index	Total of Samples	Richness Type	Balance Type	Shortage Type
Economic conditions	0.483	0.543	0.467	0.430
Agricultural income	0.420	0.462	0.413	0.391
Net income	0.533	0.626	0.512	0.470
Living expenditure	0.577	0.513	0.556	0.614
Residential conditions	0.619	0.573	0.620	0.654
House structure	0.556	0.517	0.566	0.622
House area	0.481	0.455	0.471	0.524
House quality	0.587	0.521	0.550	0.634
Degree of satisfaction to residence	0.627	0.579	0.590	0.648
Social security	0.621	0.657	0.615	0.564
Pension insurance	0.622	0.640	0.597	0.523
Medical insurance	0.631	0.653	0.608	0.577
Satisfaction degree to social security	0.636	0.663	0.621	0.574
Community conditions	0.689	0.759	0.675	0.636
Public order situation	0.751	0.762	0.742	0.693
Sanitary condition	0.694	0.660	0.723	0.634
Noise condition	0.490	0.471	0.488	0.492
Entertainment	0.614	0.557	0.606	0.656
Psychological Feeling	0.655	0.710	0.644	0.628
Neighborhood relation	0.641	0.714	0.669	0.621
Adaptation to life	0.656	0.730	0.605	0.576
Satisfaction degree to exit	0.672	0.661	0.642	0.670
Development opportunity	0.484	0.605	0.531	0.405
Development expectation	0.501	0.577	0.522	0.424
Employment opportunity	0.466	0.611	0.537	0.397
Total fuzzy index	0.552	0.604	0.577	0.513

): (1) After the exit from their residential land, the welfare of the sample farm households in the survey area has been generally improved to some extent, which indicates that they acknowledge the improvement of their own welfare condition after their exit from residential land; (2) Among the welfare functionings, except the economic condition and the development opportunity being downgraded to some extent, the other four welfare functionings have been improved substantially, with welfare related to community condition improved the most evidently.

4.2.2. Change in and Comparison of Welfare of Farm Households with Different Livelihood Assets

Specifically speaking, the analysis results show that (see Table 4) the welfare of farm households with different types of livelihood assets has been improved to different extents owing to the difference in the configuration of assets, and this difference is represented in a change in all the functionings: (1) the welfare of those farm households of the richness type increased the most, with all the six items of welfare functioning increased to various extents; among the six items, community condition and psychological feeling have been improved especially evidently; (2) the welfare of the farm households of the balance type is improved at a middle level, with their welfare of economic condition down and other functionings up to some extent, but their welfare related to development opportunity, an intangible item of welfare that may be ignored easily and needs long-term care, was not improved evidently; (3) the change in the welfare of those farm households of the shortage type is not obvious, with their welfare related to economic condition and development opportunity decreased evidently, which indicates that the two items of welfare functioning play an important role in improving welfare of such farm households.

As for the change in every item of welfare functioning, the analysis results show that (see Table 4):

(1)

Economic conditions. The economic levels of the farm households of the richness type have been upgraded to a certain extent, while those of the farm households of the other two types all decreased to different extents. It is known from the survey that after the exit from residential land, the circulation of contracted land is organized by local government in a centralized way, with 97% of the contracted land circulated. However, as the farm households of the balance type and the shortage type relied upon the contracted land for their livelihood to different extents, the distance between residence and farm was increased after the centralization of residence, and they generally had their contracted land circulated, the original income composition was changed greatly, with the farming income lowered obviously. Meanwhile, their living expenditures were increased greatly after the exit from residential land; they not only needed to purchase new furniture, home appliances, and other durable consumer goods, but also had to pay additional expenses for the supply of water and gas, neighborhood management fees, and other daily expenditures. The living expenditures increase while income sources decrease, which worsens their economic conditions obviously.

(2)

Residential conditions. The worse the configuration of the livelihood assets of a farm household is, the higher the extent to which the welfare related to residential conditions was improved. Among the indices of the residential condition, the house structure and house quality were improved the most obviously. Most of the houses of those farm households of the balance and shortage types were brick-and-tile or brick-wood structures, and some of the houses were even civil structures which had been out of repair for years. Their household income was low originally, without money left for repairing the house, so the safety coefficients of their houses were relatively low. After moving to neighborhoods, the safety coefficients of their houses were upgraded greatly because the new houses of the neighborhood had been designed according to unified standards and built in steel-concrete structures of higher quality. With their residential conditions improved greatly, the farmers’ satisfaction degrees regarding their residence were generally upgraded. However, their original residential land often included courtyards, colony houses, terraces, or other structures, covering large areas, and these farm households were resettled at a standard of 35 m² for every person. Thus the living spaces of farmers, especially those households of the richness type, were reduced after their exit from residential land.

(3)

Social security. The better the configuration of livelihood assets of a farm household was, the higher the extent to which they appreciated the welfare related to social security they gained after their exit from the residential land. The exit from residential land brings about a great improvement of medical insurance and pension insurance for farmers. It is known through investigation that most farmers have purchased rural medical insurance and pension insurance, and in addition, the local government has made more investments in medical facilities, set up community health centers and arranged doctors for those neighborhoods involved in the centralization of residence, so as to provide convenient medical services. Furthermore, reimbursements are paid for medical treatment, and thus the medical security for farmers is improved. However, the social security for those farm households of the shortage type was improved to a smaller degree, because the farm households of this type own fewer financial assets and they lack knowledge about social security; only 32.4% of them have purchased commercial insurance, much lower than the proportion of the farm households of the other types.

(4)

Community conditions. The change in the welfare level of the community condition is proportional to the configuration of the livelihood assets of farm households. When farmers live in neighborhoods, although the size, density, and mobility of the population are increased, the security guards employed by the communities make regular patrols, and, furthermore, the residents of their communities are mostly their original relatives and neighbors, so the safety is better than when living in separated houses. Local governments have formulated community sanitary regulations and taken related measures, and popularized rural sanitary knowledge in a way the common people like, so as to develop rural residents’ awareness of environment and public hygiene. By building garbage stations and disposing of domestic garbage on the basis of classification and dispatching more garbage collecting vehicles for centralized recycling and community cleaners to clean the public areas of the communities regularly, the new communities make their living environment more agreeable. Meanwhile, the communities enrich the recreational activities of farmers by establishing rural reading rooms, hosting outdoor movies, and organizing rural singing and dancing teams.

(5)

Psychological feeling. Centralized residence in communities is a change from the previous mode of scattered habitation, which makes the interaction among farmers more frequent; in addition, square dancing and other recreational activities such as dancing and singing improve their communication and neighborhood. The exit from residential land has lowered the economic conditions of some farm households, but residence in communities renders their life convenient and improves their residential conditions greatly, and in addition, medical services and elderly care are ensured to some extent. Therefore, the degree of satisfaction of farm households related to the policy on exiting from residential land is generally high; however, the adaptation of the farm households of the shortage type to the living style in communities is relatively low.

(6)

Development opportunity. The welfare related to development opportunities for the three types of farm households changes to different extents: those farm households of the richness type and the balance type experienced improvement to different extents, while this item of welfare for those farm households of the shortage type was lowered evidently. The reason for this is that compared with the other two types, the livelihood strategy of the farm households of the shortage type is single and it is very difficult for them to obtain non-farming employment because of the limitations of their skill capacity, health, and educational background. The farmers of the shortage type cannot adapt to the change in livelihood well, and this makes it hard for them to find employment opportunities in urban areas after their exit from residential land. This also indicates that the support for this type of farm household in employment after the exit from residential land remains to be strengthened.

5. Discussion

5.1. Rural Residential Land Exit Policy of China

In China, there are two main types of land assets for farmers: rural residential land and contracted farmland for basic livelihood. According to the relevant policy, the residential land from which farmers exit will be reclaimed as farmland and used for large-scale agricultural production to ensure national food security. Moreover, the centralized residence of farmers who lived in a dispersed manner before the exit will save a lot of construction land. On the one hand, the saved construction land will be used for rural revitalization to introduce industries and create employment opportunities. On the other hand, it will be used to support the orderly expansion of urban areas to properly control the scale of construction land and increase the total amount of farmland. Therefore, the exit from residential land is of great significance to China, which has a large population and relatively little arable land and suffers great resource and environmental stress. However, since rural residential land is related to the vital interests of a large number of farmers and the harmony and stability of society in China, the Chinese government has always adopted a prudent and serious attitude and followed the principle of voluntary exit with compensation when guiding farmers in the exit from residential land. Relevant laws also explicitly prohibit forced exit from residential land, and never deny the rights of farmers to the contracted farmland. As a matter of fact, most of the locations of centralized residence for relocated farm households are close to towns and away from their contracted farmland in order to provide them a better living environment and services. Therefore, most farmers tend to transfer contracted farmland and seek off-farm employment. As found in the survey area of this study, 97% of the contracted farmland was circulated. This seems to objectively cause farmers to leave their original contracted land. However, it should be pointed out that farmers will always make use of favorable policy factors to improve their livelihoods according to the rational agent assumption and the SLA framework. Given the increased farming costs due to the increase in farming distance, it is clearly more beneficial to transfer farmland for rent. Moreover, this is entirely at the discretion of individual farmers. In addition, research in underdeveloped areas of China suggests that farmers lack enthusiasm for exit from residential land mainly due to worries about livelihood and employment [45], which poses a practical obstacle to the implementation of this policy. Therefore, it is vitally important to assess the welfare changes of farm households after exit from residential land. It will help policymakers review the details of policy design and make timely adjustments to enhance the confidence of farmers in the exit, thereby unifying personal and national interests.

5.2. Changes in Welfare of Farm Households

When implementing the policy on exit from residential land, the Chinese government has emphasized ensuring that the living standards of land-lost farmers would not be decreased, and offered various compensation options, including monetary compensation, housing resettlement, and pension insurance. As observed in the survey area of this study, the welfare of farm households was obviously improved after exit from residential land, especially in terms of residential conditions, social security, community conditions, and psychological feeling. This was similarly reported in previous studies [7,33,35,46]. The results for the total sample in this paper also reveal decreased welfare of land-lost farm households in terms of agricultural income, living expenditure, and employment opportunities. This also accords with the findings in some other countries and regions [47,48,49]. This decrease can be attributed to changes in livelihood strategies and lifestyles due to the geographic shift in the location of residence. However, the more important reason for this is the “interference” of farm households of the shortage type, which has not been considered in most studies. Similar characteristics can be identified to some extent by collecting samples from regions at different levels of economic development [7]. However, since there are people living in poverty even in developed regions, regional differences cannot fully represent group differences. Moreover, when deciding whether to exit from residential land, farmers generally first consider whether and to what extent their current welfare can be improved. Therefore, it is necessary to classify farm households. In this study, land loss is shown to be associated with different degrees of welfare improvement for farm households in different groups owing to the differences in configuration of livelihood assets. Farm households of the shortage type showed no significant improvement in welfare, especially in terms of economic conditions and development opportunity. They had better results than the other two groups in residential conditions only. This can be summed up simply as “the greater the shortage, the greater the improvement; and the greater the dependence, the greater the loss.” Since economic conditions are closely related to development opportunity, policymakers should pay special attention to employment support for households of the shortage type when improving the “visible” welfare of land-lost farm households.

5.3. Policy Implications

(1)

Increasing the economic income of farm households that have exited from residential land. Encouraging enterprises to lease land in rural areas to develop modern agriculture, speeding up the circulation of land contract-management rights, which can provide sustained and stable rental income for farm households; encouraging farmers to increase income by working in urban areas, starting their own business or dealing in business, etc.; offering employment priority to capable or skilled farmers; and creating more job opportunities for farmers through the development of rural industries so as to increase their income from employment.

(2)

The employment-support system for farm households that have exited residential land should be set up and perfected, to broaden the farmers’ access to employment information by setting up all-round, multilevel information-release channels with extensive coverage through diversified means such as new media and apps, and to strengthen the professional skill training of farmers through cooperation with local vocational schools, the integration of work and study, “Internet + vocational training”, and other flexible training channels, so as to improve their vocational skills.

(3)

Differentiated plans for compensation should be worked out for farm households with different types of livelihood assets: the heterogeneity of farm households deserves close attention, and before the implementation of exit from residential land, it is necessary to collect detailed information on the demands and concerns of farm households of all types, and to work out differentiated plans for exit on the basis of the different demands of all the types of farm households. For farm households of the richness type, the main method of resettlement should be monetary compensation so as to provide them with seed capital for starting a business; for those of the shortage type, it is necessary to properly increase the economic compensation for them, and strengthen the security for them in terms of medical services and elderly care.

6. Conclusions

Numerous previous studies have revealed the positive and negative effects of land loss on the welfare of farmers, but did not sufficiently consider the differences in welfare changes due to differentiation among the farm households. Based on the field survey data of 301 farm households in Fuhong town, Qingbaijiang district, Chengdu, China, this paper classifies farm households using the livelihood asset quantification method, and measures and compares the welfare changes of farm households with different types of livelihood assets after their exit from residential land using fuzzy comprehensive evaluation according to the capability approach theory proposed by Sen. The results show that the welfare of farm households has generally improved after exit from residential land. In particular, the welfare related to community conditions has improved most significantly, whereas that related to economic conditions and development opportunity has somewhat decreased. The improvement in the overall welfare of farm households varies with the configuration of livelihood assets. Specifically, the types of livelihood assets in descending order of welfare improvement are the richness type, the balance type, and the shortage type. There is a relationship between the configuration of livelihood assets and the welfare changes of farm households after exit from residential land. Specifically, the welfare in economic conditions, social security, community conditions, psychological feeling, and development opportunity is proportional to the configuration of livelihood assets. In other words, farm households with a better configuration of livelihood assets better recognize welfare improvements in these aspects. However, the welfare in residential conditions is inversely proportional to the configuration of livelihood assets.

Eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions is the primary goal of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In 2020, China achieved the ambitious goal of comprehensively eradicating absolute poverty. However, there is still widespread relative poverty in China, and the Chinese government is making enormous efforts to overcome this problem. The research framework proposed in this paper can be used to measure the welfare changes of farm households after exit from residential land and to assess the performance of relevant land-use policies. This can also be applied to the research of relative poverty by improving the evaluation indices. However, this study has some limitations. There may be a lag in the welfare changes of land-lost farmers because it takes time for them to adapt to a new environment. In particular, welfare improvements may take longer to fully manifest for farm households of the shortage type, which requires follow-up surveys and further research. Nevertheless, this study yields some valuable findings: (1) the degree of welfare improvement is closely related to the configuration of livelihood assets of farm households; (2) the welfare gap among the surveyed farm households may be widening; and (3) the government should pay special attention to employment support for farm households of the shortage type.