Abstract
Abstract
Persistent global climate warming has driven frequent occurrences of extreme weather events, which pose a grave threat to agricultural production—with grain production bearing the brunt of these adverse impacts. As labor constitutes a core factor of production for grain farmers, adjusting labor allocation has emerged as a critical adaptive strategy for them to withstand weather shocks. Using data from the National Rural Fixed Observation Points administered by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China alongside climate data from public databases, this study applies a two-way fixed effects model to examine the causal effects of extreme weather on the labor input decisions of grain farmers. The findings are as follows: (1) Extreme weather events suppress grain farmers’ agricultural labor input while increasing their non-agricultural labor supply. (2)Under extreme weather shocks, grain farmers with stronger resource endowments accelerate the reduction of agricultural labor input but slow the growth of non-agricultural labor input. This pattern is attributable to three mechanisms: the factor substitution effect, the resilience buffer effect, and the information transmission effect. (3) Both market factors and policy factors exert moderating effects on the relationship between extreme weather and grain farmers’ labor input decisions, but their moderating directions are opposite. This divergence stems from the fact that market factors focus on alleviating labor mobility constraints, whereas policy factors prioritize stabilizing agricultural production. (4) The impacts of extreme weather on grain farmers’ labor input decisions exhibit substantial heterogeneity, driven by disparities in gender, income level, and geographic region.