Absent but Engaged: Out-Migration and the Form of Contribution to Rural Environmental Governance

Abstract Whether rural out-migration withdraws households from local environmental governance or changes the form through which they contribute is not well understood. This study finds that what shifts is not only whether households participate but also the form their contribution takes. Drawing on a survey of rural China, this study models participation in village waste-sorting governance as a two-stage decision: in which a household first decides whether to take part and then, among those willing, whether to contribute labour, cash or both. The two stages are estimated jointly with a Heckman probit selection model, with home-village attachment tested as the condition shaping the form of contribution. Households with a higher share of out-migrating labour are less likely to be willing to participate and, among willing households, less likely to intend labour-only contribution. The move towards cash is conditional rather than general: supplementary subgroup estimates suggest that cash-only contribution rises with out-migration only where home-village attachment is strong, while the corresponding coefficient is not statistically distinguishable from zero where attachment is weaker. Out-migration is associated with both a lower willingness to participate and a reallocation of contribution among those still willing, and home-village attachment marks the boundary within which this holds in this sample. These findings suggest that rural environmental schemes should allow households to contribute through cash or labour, while maintaining opportunities for migrants to remain connected to their home villages.