Title: Sowing Seeds of Mobility: The Uneven Impact of Land Reform (joint with Ting Chen, Jiajia Gu and Jin Wang)

Abstract: Barriers to labor mobility impede structural transformation. This paper explores the mobility barrier linked to land insecurity within China’s hukou system. Rural households face the risk of losing their land if they migrate. Using quasi-natural experiments of land reforms that increase land security, we show that the reforms have encouraged rural women to migrate away from agriculture at higher rates than men, increased joint spouse migration, but reduce urban women's employment rate relative to urban men. We develop and calibrate a two-region model that allows households to decide which members should migrate. The predicted impact of land reform is consistent with empirical findings on employment and migration patterns by gender. It highlights the importance of land reform on relative agricultural productivity.