Does Land Transfer Matter in Household Dietary Quality of Rural Residents in China?

ABSTRACT This study investigates the impact of land transfer on dietary quality of rural households in China. A multinomial endogenous switching regression is applied to data collected from 1050 rural households across three provinces of China. The results indicate that land transfer, including both renting in and renting out, has significant and positive effects on household dietary quality, with renting in land exhibiting a relatively larger effect than renting out land. Specifically, renting in land significantly improves household dietary quality by 7.45%, while renting out land improves it by 3.90%. For households that have not participated in land transfer, renting in and renting out land would improve their dietary quality by 6.45% and 3.99%, respectively. The change in household food consumption structure is the direct mechanism through which land transfer affects dietary quality, while mechanism analysis further reveals two indirect pathways: agricultural production and household income. The effects of land transfer on household dietary quality are more pronounced among households with lower disaster exposure, greater labor market accessibility, better‐developed local food markets, and lower income levels. These findings enhance our understanding of the welfare effects of land transfer in terms of household dietary quality and have important implications for policy design aimed at improving the dietary quality of rural residents in developing countries.