Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in Latin America: Overview and Policy Implications

Rural nonfarm employment (RNFE) and incomes (RNFI) are crucial to Latin American rural households. The 11 rural household income studies in this volume, reviewed in this paper, use 1990s data and show that RNFI averages 40% of rural incomes. RNFI and RNFE have grown quickly over the past three decades. The review of evidence provided some surprising departures from traditional images of nonfarm activities of Latin American rural households. In terms of shares of rural incomes: (1) nonfarm wage incomes exceed self-employment incomes; (2) RNFI far exceeds farm wage incomes; (3) local RNFI far exceeds migration incomes; (4) Service-sector RNFI far exceeds manufactures RNFI. These findings suggest the need for more development program attention to wage employment in the service sector, versus the traditional focus on small enterprise manufactures. Moreover, poor households and zones tend to have higher shares in their incomes but lower absolute levels of RNFI as compared to richer households and zones. The RNFE of the poor tend to be the low-paid nonfarm equivalent of semi-subsistence farming. Raising the capacity of the poor to participate in the better-paid types of RNFE is crucial — via employment skills training, education, infrastructure, credit. Finally, RNFE has grown fastest and been most poverty-alleviating where there are dynamic growth motors, in particular in the agricultural sector, but also in tourism, links to urban areas, mining and forestry. This means that developing RNF jobs cannot be done at the expense of programs promoting agricultural development.     

Rural Nonfarm Incomes in Nicaragua

This paper examines nonfarm incomes of rural Nicaraguan households using a nationwide survey (LSMS) from 1998. The key findings are as follows. (a) Rural nonfarm income (RNFI) constitutes 41% of rural household incomes. (b) RNFI is much more important than farm wage-labor income. (c) RNFI tends to be relatively concentrated geographically and socioeconomically, toward the rural areas of the Managua zone and the Rest-of-Pacific zone, which are denser in infrastructure and population, and toward the upper income quartile of rural households. This concentration implies high entry barriers and capital requirements for rural nonfarm activity that the poor are simply not equipped to overcome. Equipping the rural poor through training and acquisition of diverse forms of capital to have a chance at the higher return nonfarm jobs would be a major step toward helping them to share the benefits of the rural nonfarm economy. (d) Self-employment (small enterprise) income in manufactures is very minor, probably due to the ease of obtaining manufactured goods from urban industries and imports. Wage employment constitutes the bulk of RNFI (despite it receiving little attention in development programs and debate). (e) Three-quarters of RNFI is in the service sector, and only one-quarter is from manufactures; that can be contrasted with the emphasis on small manufactures enterprises in rural development programs and research. (f) Education, road access, as well as access to electricity and water were found to be important to nonfarm incomes.     

政府政策对农民收入的影响分析

新阶段农业和农村问题的核心归结为农民收入的增长问题.政策是农民增收的灵魂,政策为农民增收提供制度上的保证.文章就是分析了政策为什么能影响农民增收,探讨政策如何影响农民增收问题,然后得出一些建设性结论.     

Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in Chile

This article analyzes the evolution of rural nonfarm employment (RNFE) and income in Chile during 1990–96. The data used come from the National Socioeconomic Survey (CASEN), and from a household survey undertaken by the authors in two municipalities in 1999. The latter contrasted two zones, very different in terms of economic dynamism and rural poverty. We show that during the period, RNFE and incomes increased 10% and 18%, respectively, in 1996, reaching 39% of rural employment and 41% of rural incomes. The rate of multiactivity (the share of households participating in more than one sector) was only 20%, lower than expected, indicating a tendency toward economic specialization in rural income strategies. The determinants of such employment are mainly household characteristics, in particular variables related to human capital, such as the age and gender of the household head, and the schooling of the household members, although also important are access to credit and physical capital. The level of nonfarm income of rural households is determined mainly by the economic context, in particular the economic level and dynamism of the overall zone and the quality of the roads. It is proposed that policies to develop RNFE should be geared to zone characteristics, and should in general favor investments in education, in roads, and in access to credit. Moreover, households headed by women should be the object of special attention. To promote such policies, it will be necessary to address important gaps and weaknesses in the public institutional structure.     

西部收入偏低亟待改革

改革开放以来，由于各种原因使得我国地区之间的经济发展水平和收入水平有了很大的差距。对于这些差距，我们可以通过对人均经济收入、人均财政收入、城镇居民可支配收入、农民人均纯收入、人均国际收入等五个指标的分析中详细地看到。从客观性和可行性的意义上讲，西部地区要在短时期内消除这些差距，是根本不可能的。因此，作为西部地区来讲，应该选择实事求是的态度，既要正视这些差距的长期存在，又要通过体制创新、政策创新、战略创新等，努力探索试图缩小差距的途径和对策。     

Growing Incomes,Growing People in Nineteenth-Century Tasmania

The earliest measures of well-being for Europeans born in the Pacific region are heights and wages in Tasmania. Evidence of rising stature in middle decades of the nineteenth century survives multiple checks for measurement, compositional, and selection bias. The challenge to health and stature seen in other settler societies (the ‘antebellum paradox’) is not visible here. We sketch an interpretation for the simultaneous rise of Tasmanian stature and per capita gross domestic product based on relatively slow population growth and urbanisation, a decline in food cost per family member available from a worker's wage, and early recognition of the importance of public health.     

The Rise and Fall of Exceptional Australian Incomes Since 1800

We gauge how productivity and factor endowments shaped the rise and fall of Australia's exceptional incomes using new measures of total factor productivity (TFP), which include natural resource inputs, in an accounting of income growth. Further, we explore the drivers of TFP growth. Pastoralism and mining had negative TFP externalities, and we incorporate these findings into a unified accounting of incomes, which distinguishes the roles of endowments and productivity. Nevertheless, TFP growth played an important role in promoting exceptional incomes between 1842 and 1890. Our findings favour a more balanced interpretation of Australian growth that has roles for natural resources, labour participation, and productivity.     

Why Do Differences in Provincial Incomes Persist in Indonesia?

Despite 20 years of sustained economic growth that saw provincial GDPs rise and inequalities in per capita provincial GDPs fall, per capita income disparities among provinces persist. In this paper we present evidence that poor provinces have tended to catch up with middle- and high-income provinces, hut that regions at the top and bottom of the distribution in 1975 finished. In similar positions in 1993 lnvestments in human capital (education and health) seem to be the most effective way of increasing provincial incomes and reducing the disparities in provincial GDP per capita. The poorer provinces and rural areas can grow faster than the richer ones because they can gain the most from better health and education, they have the highest rates of illiteracy, fertility, and infant, child and maternal mortality.     

Reducing the Number of Pesticide- Related Illnesses: The Impact on Household Incomes in Indonesia

The increasing number of human health problems caused by the use of pesticides serves as a warning to countries to develop preventive programs Developing countries, however, are concerned about the effect of such programs on household incomes. With Indonesia as a case study, this paper presents a procedure to broaden a Social Accounting Matrix to include the impact of agricultural pesticide use on human health This approach utilises the Constrained Fixed Price Multiplier method to analyse the effect, on the household incomes of different socio-economic classes, of government programs that are designed to reduce human pesticide-related illnesses The results show that reducing such illnesses through the Safe Use of Pesticides program or the Integrated Pest Management program induces a more equal income distribution.     

Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in Brazil: Patterns and Evolution

In decades past, a large contingent of workers left farms and small towns to move to the large cities of Brazil. But in the 1990s, not only has this flow subsided, but one even observes an “urbanization” of rural areas via a large increase in nonfarm activities in rural areas during the 1980s and 1990s, especially in the Center-West and Southeast regions of Brazil. Exclusively agricultural rural households have lower incomes than “multiactive households” (those with activities in both the farm and nonfarm sectors) and than nonfarm rural households. One even notes a significant reduction in the number of purely farm households over 1992–97 in all regions of the country.     

论我国农民收入分配不公正的原因和对策

随着改革开放的深入,收入差距日益扩大,农民收入分配不公正已成为人们关注的焦点.在我国,“三农“的弱质性、农民压力集团的缺位、社会等级制度及片面的工业化政策是导致农民收入分配不公正的主要原因.因此,加大对“三农“投入、平等地对待农民及提高农民组织程度是解决我国农民收入分配不公正的有效对策.     

破除农民工低学历高收入的认识误区和实践藩篱

文章以破除"农民工低学历高收入"的认识误区为逻辑起点,详细剖析了农民工特别是从事建筑、装修等工种的农民工所谓的"高收入"是由长劳动时间、高劳动强度、高劳动风险和牺牲发展前途为代价换来的,其小时工资并不比社会其他行业同层次人员高。在此基础上,实证分析了农民工收入与其受教育程度的正相关性;从正反两方面确立了关于农民工教育和收入问题上的价值评价标准和价值导向;最后,从切实提高农村义务教育质量、真正发挥职业教育在农村人才培养的作用、优化职业教育专业结构和课程设置、切实提高农民工接受职业培训机会和效果四个方面提出了提高农民工教育程度和收入水平的实践举措。     

The Determinants of Nonfarm Activities and Incomes of Rural Households in Mexico,with Emphasis on Education

This paper presents the main results of a study of the effects of education (as well as other household assets) on the choice of activities and incomes of rural Mexican households. Our study examines the various income sources, as well as the education of the household's head and its members. Implications are drawn for rural education and development policies to promote rural nonfarm incomes and employment.     

浅析农民增收难的原因及增收对策

“三农”问题的关键是要解决农业的发展问题,而只有持续提高农民收入,才能真正实现农村社会的长治久安。本文试图通过对影响我国农民增收的原因进行分析,探讨农民增收的对策。     

汇率变动对工资和就业结构影响的实证分析

本文由Frenkel两部门理论模型,采用IMF提供的人民币对美元实际汇率数据,通过实证分析发现,实际汇率升值会显著减少贸易部门就业,即人民币升值使贸易部门就业人数显著减少,非贸易部门第二产业工人就业人数会增加,对第三产业工人就业影响不大,但就业工人实际工资水平都会有所提高。所以本文的结论是,人民币升值能提升中低阶层福利水平,支持人民币升值。