Agricultural Labor Productivity (APL) is a pivotal determinant of cross-national income inequality and a core indicator of national agricultural competitiveness. Integrated urban-rural development (IURD)—the institutional evolution of urban-rural relations toward functional integration and spatial equity—centers on optimizing the allocation of production factors across the urban-rural continuum. Analyzing how IURD enhances APL thus holds substantial theoretical and practical significance. To this end, we construct a comprehensive IURD index grounded in two empirically distinguishable dimensions: regional development integration and urban-rural coordination. Based on panel data from 27 provinces in China between 2006 and 2022, this study employs the entropy-weighted TOPSIS model and polygonal area method to assess the level of IURD, and utilizes the fixed-effects model, instrumental variable method, and mediation effect model to examine the impact of IURD on APL. Our principal findings are: (1) A one percentage-point increase in the IURD index raises APL by 1.635 percent; Both Urban-Rural Integration (URI) and Urban-Rural Development (URD) exert positive and statistically significant effects, with URI exhibiting greater marginal impact. (2) The enhancement effect of urban-rural integrated development on APL exhibits significant spatial heterogeneity, with particularly pronounced contributions in central regions and major grain-producing areas. (3) Industrial structure distortion alleviation and enhanced fiscal support for agriculture serve as robust mediating channels—both passing formal causal mediation tests at conventional significance levels. It is recommended that IURD be accelerated and APL be enhanced through the strategic advancement of urban agglomerations, county-level urbanization, and intra-county integrated development.
Hanhui et al. (2026) studied this question.