Factors influencing rural households' willingness of centralized residence: Comparing pure and nonpure farming areas in China

In recent years, Chinese governments began exploring centralized residence of rural households, with a view to protecting farming land through the incorporation and reduction of rural construction land, building new countryside, and solving the problem of insufficient construction land quotas for urban development. In the centralized residence process, it is important to study the willingness of rural households and factors influencing their willingness. This empirical study used Panshan County and Jiangshan City as representatives of pure and nonpure farming areas, respectively. Three logistic regression models were applied, to explore differences between pure and nonpure farming areas and the factors influencing rural households' willingness to accept centralized residence according to five aspects: households individual characteristics, family economy, policy perception, housing conditions, and social environment. The results showed that, for nonpure farming areas, such as Jiangshan City, when there is more trust in the village collective, less arable area, increased satisfaction with infrastructure and higher non-agricultural income, the more willing rural households are to accept centralized residence. In pure farming areas, such as Panshan County, when there are greater expectations of policy, the safer environments and higher non-agricultural income, the more willing rural households are to accept centralized residence. By comparison, rural households in nonpure farming areas are more concerned with fairness future quality of life, while those in pure farming areas are more concerned with implementation and guaranteed compensation. China's centralized residence policy should focus on the objective conditions of each region, and appropriately differentiate based on different areas and categories.