The influence of forestland tenure security on rural labor migration—further discussion based on migration location

Amid China’s comprehensive deepening of the new round of collective forest tenure reform, we integrate legal, actual, and perceived levels of tenure security into an analytical framework. Using survey data from 508 rural households in the Jiangxi’s collective forest area, we apply Tobit and IV-Tobit models to reveal the impact of multidimensional forestland tenure security on labor migration, distinguishing between outside-of-county and intra-county labor migration, with heterogeneity across forestland management scales. Our results show that ownership of forest rights certificates and positive evaluations of the “separation of three rights” policy have significant positive effects on labor migration. Additionally, we uncover nuanced effects of tenure security on migration patterns, with different dimensions and scales influencing intra-county versus outside-of-county migration. These findings suggest that policymakers should focus on enhancing legal clarity, facilitating actual tenure stability to encourage rational labor migration, and optimizing rural resource allocation in China’s collective forest areas. As the collective forest rights reform continues to advance broadly, the government should strengthen the oversight system for policy implication, intensify policy publicity efforts, prioritize the implementation of local forest reform policies, and enhance farmers’ awareness and understanding of forest rights policies to fully leverage the positive role of forest rights safeguards.