China’s poverty alleviation relocation program aims to improve living standards in impoverished areas through population resettlement. However, the m

Poverty alleviation relocation has been an important instrument in China’s victory in the battle against poverty. Relocated households’ adaptation to production and lifestyles at resettlement destinations not only concerns the reconstruction of their sustainable livelihoods and the enhancement of their development capacity, but may also affect decisions concerning the cultivation of cropland in their places of origin. However, the relationship between perceived post-relocation adaptation and cropland abandonment, as well as its underlying mechanism, remains unclear. Accordingly, this study uses micro-level survey data collected in 2022 from 814 relocated households in Liangshan Prefecture and applies microeconometric models to examine the relationship between perceived post-relocation adaptation and cropland abandonment and its underlying mechanism. The results show that: (1) Relocated households’ perceived adaptation to production and lifestyles at resettlement destinations is significantly and positively associated with cropland-abandonment area. (2) After replacing the dependent-variable measure and conducting a sensitivity analysis using an instrumental-variable approach, the model results remain consistent with the baseline regression. (3) Livelihood diversification is an important explanatory mechanism in the relationship between perceived post-relocation adaptation and cropland abandonment. The mediating effect accounts for 0.484 of the total effect, indicating that livelihood diversification can explain approximately 48.4% of the association between the two variables. The relevant research conclusions can provide a reference point for policies that promote poverty alleviation relocation or ecological migrant-family cropland management modes, social integration, and the optimisation of follow-up support policies.