Multidimensional urban shrinkage and rural labor-force hollowing: Empirical evidence from China

China's transition from expansion-led urbanization to the reorganization of existing assets is reshaping relations between cities and their rural hinterlands. Using a balanced panel of 286 Chinese cities from 2007 to 2023, this study examines how economic, population, and spatial shrinkage are associated with rural labor-force hollowing. Fixed-effects estimates show a consistent positive association across all three dimensions. Because lower values indicate both deeper urban shrinkage and lower rural employment intensity, these estimates imply that stronger urban contraction is associated with more severe rural labor-force hollowing. Instrumental-variable, machine-learning, and sensitivity analyses yield the same directional finding. Urban wages and local fiscal revenue provide two partial transmission channels, while persistent direct effects indicate that these channels do not fully account for the adjustment process. Local estimates reveal substantial geographic variation, particularly for economic shrinkage. The distance analysis further suggests that urban-rural linkages are strongest within broader functional regions surrounding core cities. Urban shrinkage should therefore be understood as part of a wider urban-rural restructuring process whose consequences vary with the form of contraction and regional context.