Curbing the abandonment of cropland is a critical measure to ensure national food security. This study investigates whether, how and under what circumstances off-farm employment induces cropland abandonment, which is of great importance for developing countries to cope with food security. Exploiting large-scale panel data from the newly released Chinese Family Database, this chapter employs a two-way fixed effects model to empirically estimate the causal relationship between off-farm employment and cropland abandonment. Results show that off-farm employment leads to an increase in the probability and area of cropland abandoned due to insufficient agricultural labor. However, off-farm employment does not harm farm households in plain areas, or villages with land rental markets, abundant agricultural labor, and agricultural machinery, while abandon their cropland than those in other areas. Additionally, when the number of off-farm workers in a household exceeds two, the probability and area of cropland abandonment will miraculously decline, as the household will no longer live entirely on agriculture. This study fills the gap in clarifying the relationship between off-farm employment and cropland abandonment, and identifies scenarios where off-farm employment may not cause cropland abandonment through multiple dimensions, providing insights into the governance of cropland abandonment during rural-urban transformation in developing countries.