This paper explores the rural labor market impact of migration in China using crosssectional
data on rural households for the year 2007. A switching probit model is used to
estimate the impact of belonging to a migrant-sending household on the individual occupational
choice categorized in four binary decisions: farm work, wage work, self-employment
and housework. The paper then goes on to estimate how the impact of migration differs
across different types of migrant households identified along two additional lines: remittances
and migration history. Results show that individual occupational choice in rural China is
responsive to migration, at both the individual and the family levels, but the impacts differ:
individual migration experience favors subsequent local off-farm work, whereas at the family
level, migration drives the left-behinds to farming rather than to off-farm activities. Our
results also point to the interplay of various channels through which migration influences
rural employment patterns.