Has farmer welfare improved after rural residential land circulation?

The uneven distribution of welfare not only hinders social fairness but also affects the optimal allocation of resources for rural residential land. Recourse to traditional welfare theory or Amartya Sen's function and ability welfare theory is inappropriate in this situation as neither is focused on the influence of welfare differences. Therefore, this study aims to provide a new focus for welfare economics in integrating the concept of the internal group welfare gap into overall welfare evaluation. Fuzzy mathematics is applied to calculate welfare and the concept of the Gini coefficient is used to evaluate the welfare gap. The resulting model is applied to the cities of Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Wuxi before and after rural residential land circulation (RRLC) to determine their resulting changes in welfare and welfare gap. From this, it is found that, after RRLC, the farmers' overall welfare increased by 17.5%, 15.1%, and 23.5% respectively, while the welfare gap of Guangzhou and Wuxi was improved, and Chongqing was decreased. This means the welfare gap widened in Guangzhou and Wuxi, while narrowed in Chongqing. Concluding remarks call for increased government attention to the fair distribution of welfare between different groups of farmers by increased social security and a more detailed consideration of the groups involved.