This study examines whether land-tenure reforms—specifically rural land certification—facilitate labour diversification, international migration and improvements in household nutritional outcomes in rural Ethiopia. Utilising village-level variation in the rollout of the land certification programme and household and district-year fixed effects, the analysis shows that land certification is positively associated with the share of hours spent on non-agricultural activities, primarily unpaid apprenticeships, while being negatively associated with the share of hours spent on agricultural work. Despite this shift, the programme increases the total number of hours allocated to non-agricultural activities, particularly non-farm businesses and unpaid apprenticeships, without reducing time spent on agriculture. Additionally, land certification significantly is associated with a greater likelihood of casual employment and international migration. This suggests that enhanced tenure security mitigates the risks associated with labour mobility and enables households to pursue more diverse livelihood strategies. These economic shifts are accompanied by improvements in household nutrition: a certified households is associated with a young children consuming a greater number of meals per day, as well as significantly greater dietary diversity among men, women and children. These findings emphasise that secure land tenure is associated with structural transformation through labour reallocation and migration, thereby improving household food access and nutrition. This study contributes to existing literature on the non-agricultural and food system impacts of land policy by emphasising the importance of secure land rights in facilitating rural structural transformation and food security in low-income, agrarian settings.
Solomon Haddis (Tue,) studied this question.