Can Social Capital Help the Youngers Rent Land?—A Case of Pastoral Areas in Inner Mongolia, P.R. China

Abstract

Ensuring the youngers obtain access to land resources is important to help them earn a living and sustain agriculture. By applying a probit model to a comprehensive dataset with 422 sampled households from Inner Mongolia, the results of this study showed that social capital significantly improved the possibility of herders renting land. However, compared with the middle-aged group, the youngers’ social capital is significantly weaker in helping them rent land. The findings and policy implications proposed by this study are expected to narrow the intergenerational difference in social capital and promote the transfer of land between generations, which will help the youngers obtain access to land resources, enhance their sustainable livelihood, and facilitate the sustainability of agriculture in the future.