Returning to Revive: The Role of Returning Migrant Laborers in Cropland Abandonment in the Hilly and Mountainous Areas of Sichuan Province, China

ABSTRACT Food security is the foundation of national security, and the serious problem of cropland abandonment undermines it. With the evolution of rural labor migration patterns, the return of migrant laborers has become an emerging trend in China's rural labor transformation, and its potential role in cropland abandonment remains underexplored. Using a dataset of 3308 plots in Sichuan Province, this study empirically examined the impact of returning migrant laborers on cropland abandonment, as well as the underlying mechanisms and heterogeneous effects. The results indicated that: (1) Returning migrant laborers lower the probability of cropland abandonment, with a marginal effect of 0.037. (2) The returning migrant laborers contribute to reducing cropland abandonment through dual pathways of agricultural socialized services adoption and the land operation scale expansion. (3) Heterogeneity results reveal that the inhibitory impact of returning migrant laborers is stronger in villages with land transfer services, in households with lower aging population or nonfarm employment levels, and on remote, irrigated, slope, or medium‐quality plots. These findings provide insights for designing policies to address cropland abandonment.