Productivity or Burden? How Voluntary and Involuntary Returnees Reshape Agriculture

Xiaoluan LiuFangbin Qiao^*

• Central University of Finance and Economics, Beijing, China

In recent decades, China has witnessed a significant wave of return migration following years of large-scale rural-to-urban movement. This study examines the impact of return migration on agricultural productivity, with a particular focus on distinguishing between voluntary and involuntary returnees. While prior research was limited to policy-specific regions with voluntary returnee bias, this study not only leverages nationally representative data but also addresses endogeneity through fixed effects models, instrumental variables, and propensity score matching to address endogeneity concerns caused by both observed and unobserved variables. We find that while voluntary return migration has modest positive effects on agricultural productivity, involuntary return migration exerts a net negative impact. Mechanistically, voluntary returnees demonstrate higher agricultural productivity owing to their enhanced skills and greater proficiency in accessing and utilizing agricultural information, whereas involuntary returnees encounter productivity constraints primarily due to health limitations and family caregiving responsibilities.