Spatial Restructuring, Labour Reallocation, and Household Income: Evidence From Poverty Alleviation Resettlement in China

ABSTRACT China's poverty alleviation resettlement (PAR) programme provides an opportunity to examine how state‐led population redistribution reshapes rural household livelihoods. Drawing on 186,705 household‐year observations from Fuping County eastern China, between 2014 and 2022, we estimate a two‐way fixed‐effects difference‐in‐differences model and conduct robustness checks that account for staggered treatment timing. PAR improves access to several public services but increases the distance between homes and cultivated land. It is associated with an approximately 1.1% increase in household per‐capita net income. Mechanism‐consistent estimates indicate that PAR increases non‐agricultural employment, with the employment response concentrated within the resettlement township rather than at more distant locations. PAR also increases the annual duration of non‐agricultural employment. Income gains are larger among female‐headed households and households with skilled workers, but smaller among households with higher shares of older members. Income outcomes also vary by resettlement destination and type of post‐relocation support. By distinguishing sectoral labour reallocation from geographical labour mobility, the study shows how state‐led population redistribution can facilitate economic mobility through highly localised labour‐market integration without necessarily increasing long‐distance migration. It contributes to population geography by demonstrating that the developmental consequences of relocation depend on how access to employment, services and productive land is reorganised, as well as on households’ differing capacities to take advantage of these opportunities. Our findings demonstrate that PAR achieves spatial restructuring, labor reallocation, livelihood strategy reshaping, and livelihood sustainability, and represents an important initiative for eliminating long‐term (chronic) poverty resulting from geo‐environmental constraints.