Labor out-migration and agricultural change in rural China: A systematic review and meta-analysis

• Migration–agriculture relationships represent a key aspect of rural restructuring.
• We conducted a meta-analysis of migration and agricultural change in rural China.
• Our QCA analysis included 20 case studies from 12 selected publications.
• The analysis revealed general contextual patterns of migration effects on agriculture.
• The QCA configurations mainly reflected regional and economic development settings.

The relationships between migration and agriculture represent a key aspect of rural restructuring in China and many other developing countries. Previous research largely generated mixed and incomplete findings on the effects of rural out-migration on agricultural change. Meta-analysis is considered as an important research strategy for comparing and integrating results from individual studies. Using a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) approach, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of recent case studies of labor out-migration and agricultural change in rural China. The analysis revealed general contextual patterns of migration impacts on agriculture. Migration-induced agricultural change was mainly conditional upon the specific conjunctural configuration of a rural community’s economic development level or geographical locality, its land resources and dependence on agriculture, and whether the period under investigation was post-agricultural tax abolition. Overall, this meta-study provides the big picture of the complex migration–agriculture relationships in rural China, which is often missed in smaller-scale case studies. Such synthetic findings are particularly useful for informing evidence-based rural development planning and policy making.