Impacts of Farmer Differentiation and Environmental Cognition on Farmers’ Willingness to Withdraw from Rural Homesteads: Evidence from Two Pilot Areas in East Hubei, China

Abstract

As a key prerequisite for the promotion of withdrawal from rural homesteads (WRH), farmers’ willingness to withdraw has long attracted extensive attention. This study proposes an analytical framework for understanding rural households’ WRH intentions integrating farmer differentiation and environmental cognition (EC), and identifies the influencing factors, using surveyed data of 842 rural households collected in two pilot villages in Hubei Province. Binary logistic regression was applied to explore the impact of factors and the influencing mechanism. The results show that both farmer differentiation and EC have a significant impact on their willingness to withdraw from homesteads. Most factors are positively related to villagers’ preference for WRH, except the age of household head, share of agricultural income in annual household income, and satisfaction with existing rural infrastructure. The findings emphasize the combined roles of farmer differentiation and EC in shaping the willingness of WRH, providing a basis for other regions to benefit from the experiences in pilot areas and thus better implement the policy.