The impact of remittance income on rural households in China
Abstract
Purpose
The objective of this paper is to evaluate the impact of remittance income on rural households in China.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from a large survey of farming households in three Chinese provinces, the impacts of remittances and other types of income on consumption, production expenditures is evaluated. The econometric models used in this study include logit, tobit and ordinary least squares models.
Findings
It is found that remittances increase nondurable consumption, but not as much as local wages and that there is no difference in the impact on agricultural production spending between remittance and local wages. The large majority of remittances are reported by the households of non‐permanent migrants, suggesting that the fear of losing land allocations has a strong impact on migration decision.
Originality/value
The paper uses a large data set from three distinct provinces of China and is among the first to investigate the different types of remittance and their impacts on both consumption and production activities of Chinese rural households.
Keywords
Citation
Snyder, S. and Chern, W.S. (2009), "The impact of remittance income on rural households in China", China Agricultural Economic Review, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 38-57. https://doi.org/10.1108/17561370910915357
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009, Emerald Group Publishing Limited