Coping with off-farm employment shocks at the grassroots level in rural areas: evidence from the COVID-19 pandemic in China

A better understanding of the effectiveness of grassroots coping measures against existing shocks is essential in case similar events arise in the future. This study examines how rural villages coped with off-farm employment shocks during the COVID-19 pandemic, using a panel dataset of 800 households in 100 villages across 25 counties in five provinces. Our data show that between the COVID-19 outbreak and April 2020, up to 81% of villages adopted at least one measure to support off-farm employment, such as providing job information, job offers and transportation subsidies or services. Regression results from both Propensity Score Matching and Instrumental Variable approaches consistently show that providing job information with job offers significantly reduced the probability of exiting off-farm employment and reducing working hours. Providing job information alone also reduced the probability of working fewer hours, but with little heterogeneous effects by gender, education or the village’s economic status. These findings provide valuable insights for other developing countries and can help inform policymakers about the effectiveness of grassroots responses to off-farm employment shocks.