The sustainability of rice-cropping systems hinges on balancing resources, output, and environmental impacts. China is revitalizing the ancient ratoon rice (RR) system for input savings and environmental benefits. Prior research has explored the RR system’s performance using various individual indicators, but few studies have focused on its overall balance of these factors. Environmental efficiency (EE) analysis addresses this gap. Using field survey data from Hunan Province in China and the slacks-based data envelopment analysis method, we quantified the EE of the RR, double-season rice (DR), and single-season rice (SR) systems. Key findings include: (1) the RR system outperforms in carbon emissions and non-point source pollution; (2) the RR system’s EE is 0.67, significantly higher than the DR (0.58) and SR (0.57) systems, indicating superior performance; and (3) despite its relatively high EE, the RR system can still improve, mainly due to input redundancy and production value shortfall. These findings provide strategies for optimizing RR systems to enhance agricultural sustainability.

Rural–urban student migration during the compulsory education stage is a transitional phenomenon in China’s socio-economic development and a crucial issue for achieving the goal of urban–rural integration. This paper, grounded in theoretical analysis, constructs a “willingness-capacity-behavior” framework. Based on field survey data from 916 rural households and in-depth interview materials from County D, Province X, China, this study employs a bivariate Probit model and qualitative analysis methods to explore the driving factors and formation mechanisms of rural households’ rural–urban student migration decisions. The results indicate that rural households’ decisions regarding rural–urban student migration are jointly influenced by migration willingness and migration capacity. Only households with both migration willingness and migration capacity can actualize migration behavior. Migration willingness is derived from a cost–benefit analysis and involves joint decision-making by both parents, significantly influenced by parental personal characteristics and the student’s individual characteristics. The intermediate barriers to rural–urban student migration require certain migration capacities to be overcome, which are mainly influenced by family resource endowment and parental personal characteristics.