The Impact of Land Right Certification on Rural Residents' Social Class Cognition

With the deepening reform of the “Separation of Three Rights” (ownership, contracting, and management rights), the titling and certification of land and housing—as a key institutional arrangement for clarifying property rights—profoundly affects farmers’ sense of property security and social class identification. Based on micro-data from a rural social stratification survey, this paper employs the Ordered Logit model and Propensity Score Matching (PSM) method to systematically explore the impact of titling and certification on rural residents’ subjective social status and its underlying mechanisms. The study findings are as follows: (1) Titling and certification effectively enhance the subjective social status of rural residents. (2) Heterogeneity analysis reveals that this positive effect is more pronounced among agricultural Hukou holders and households engaged in large-scale farming. (3) Mechanism analysis demonstrates that titling and certification positively elevate rural residents’ subjective social status primarily through two core pathways: facilitating land transfer and accelerating occupational differentiation. Therefore, this paper recommends further invigorating land management rights, improving public service systems for the land transfer market, and strengthening support for non-agricultural vocational training and identity transformation. These measures aim to synergistically advance rural revitalization and common prosperity through the efficient flow of production factors and the vertical mobility of labor.