ROLES OF WOMEN ON FARMS: A PILOT STUDY

Official statistics do not reveal the nature of the contribution which farmers' wives make to the farm labour force. On the basis of a pilot study, three roles for women on farms were identified. Main distinguishing features were division of labour between husband and wife, frequency of manual work, responsibility for farm enterprises, participation in formal organisations and approach to housework. Home-centred farm housewives only work on the farm occasionally, working farmwives assist their husbands regularly while women farmers threaten male status by doing “man's” work. Reasons for women playing one role rather than another are discussed. Trends in agriculture suggest that the farmer's wife's contribution to the farm business will become still more significant in future. “The concept of ‘the farmer and his wife’ so often used by agricultural economics is far from having universal validity” (Ashby, 1953: 97).     

Labour Market Effects of a Female Stipend Programme in Bangladesh

Bangladesh's female secondary education stipend programme was one of the first conditional cash transfer programmes in the world. While numerous studies have investigated the impacts of such programmes on school enrolment, attendance and learning, less attention has been paid to their long-term labour market effects. This article extends the literature by studying the effects of Bangladesh's programme on earnings and the sector of employment, as well as on labour force participation and education outcomes, using repeated cross-sectional data in a difference-in-difference framework. We find that exposure to 5 years of the programme is be associated with a 1-year increase in education level completed and an increase in female labour force participation by six percentage points. However, we find that wages decrease by about 17% because the women have difficulties in finding a good job and end up in low productivity self-employment work.     

FARMERS‘ WIVES - THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE FARM BUSINESS

The contribution which farmers' wives make to the farm business is typically overlooked and under-valued, yet the farm could not function without it. The paper describes the nature of the work done by wives on farms in the UK and Ireland as revealed by two recent postal surveys. Using data from the Farm Business Survey for England and Wales, it attempts to quantify some aspects of the work. It is suggested that farm wives may contribute 5 per cent of the manual hours worked by the regular labour force and 9–10 per cent of the total regular labour input on main holdings. Further, as hired and family labour is shed and farmers seek additional employment, the wife's labour contribution is likely to become more significant. Continued neglect of women's involvement may jeopardise the future of the family farm. The paper suggests how data collection procedures might be improved to give a more realistic picture of the wife's contribution.     

Economic factors affecting human fertility in the developing areas of Southern Africa

South Africa's annual population growth rate, in the traditional sector, is 3.5% (1980-2000), a rate similar to those experienced in the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, and over which the World Bank has expressed concern. For the purposes of this study, economic factors explaining family size choice in the traditional sector were examined and linkages between family size decisions and socio-economic variables analysed. Household utility was maximised subject to resource constraints of time, labour and income, from which a demand curve for children was derived with emphasis on the opportunity cost of wives' time and the quantity-quality trade-off for children. A stratified sampling technique was used to collect data from KwaZulu households in South Africa. Regression analysis was used to estimate the demand function and principal components analysis confirmed the underlying theoretical linkages. Results show that wife's education (expected income or opportunity cost), child help (benefits) and desired family size were important explanatory variables. Three components extracted represented the substitution effect, the income effect and child investment theory. Results show that investment in education, taken as a proxy for expected earnings, is a strong policy option for reducing family size.     

THE ESTIMATION OF OFF-FARM LABOUR SUPPLY FUNCTIONS IN SASKATCHEWAN

In this paper, a farm-household utility maximising model which incorporates the time of both the farm operator and his wife is developed. The model is then used to estimate the off-farm labour supply of the operator and his wife, and develop policy recommendations concerning further increases in off-farm labour participation by farmers and their wives. A Heckman procedure is employed to test for sample selectivity bias. The results suggest that the supply of off-farm labour is inelastic for men but quite responsive to the estimated shadow wage for women.     

Partnerships and production: Agriculture and polygyny in Tanzanian households

Women make important contributions to household food production in sub‐Saharan Africa. Women's agricultural productivity is often reduced, however, by inefficient intrahousehold allocation of agricultural resources. Complex marital structures found in polygynous households may complicate resource allocation. Using three waves of the Tanzania Living Standards Measurement Survey–Integrated Survey on Agriculture, we measure the effect of the marital structure, wife position, and plot management on agricultural productivity and input allocations. We find evidence of cooperation within polygynous households. Plots managed by husbands and wives in polygynous households produce more valuable crops, have higher yields, and are more likely to use fertilizer than their monogamous counterparts. Within polygynous households, we observe that plots jointly managed by husbands, first wives, and second wives (together) have significantly more family labor than plots managed by husbands and first wives. This result may provide evidence of different production technologies across plot managers within the same households.     

Inter-generational Determinants of Migration Decisions: The Case of International Labour Migration from Nepal

The article explores the deep determinants of migration decisions, with a focus on what appears to be a particularly profitable pathway out of poverty: overseas labour migration. To what extent is this choice constrained by access to economic resources, in contrast to variations in preferences or perceived costs of migration? We use previous migration choices as an indicator of preferences for migration. We find that households of early in-migrants to the frontier area we study in Nepal are more likely to have international labour migrants today than late in-migrants. This indicates that in-migrants need a generation, or more, to settle in the new location before sending household members to work overseas. Present migration decisions are also restricted by the household's land ownership, which in turn is a function of the land owned by the previous generation.     

Agricultural Policy Reform and Off‐farm Labour Decisions

Off‐farm labour decisions of a sample of Kansas farmers are evaluated. The central question of our analysis pertains to whether 1996 US farm policy reforms may have altered the decisions to work off the farm. The effects of policy decoupling on off‐farm labour are complex: different aspects of policy changes can have opposing effects on off‐farm work decisions. Essentially, this makes this issue an empirical question. Results show that the introduction of fixed, decoupled payments in 1996 might have reduced the likelihood of off‐farm labour participation. However, the new policy environment may have increased farm households’ revealed aversion to risk, motivating a higher participation in non‐farm labour markets. The effects of 1996 policy reforms on farm income variability could have been attenuated by changes in US crop insurance programmes and by an increase in emergency assistance payments towards the end of the 1990s. The reduction in price supports may have increased the motivation for working off the farm. The net effect of the overall reforms on off‐farm work participation is not likely to have been large.     

Short-term employment transitions of the Canadian labour force: rural-urban differences in underemployment

Using data from the Canadian Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics (SLID) for the period 1993–1996, we examine patterns and determinants of labour‐force transitions of adequately employed and underemployed workers in an attempt to explore whether employment dynamics significantly differ between rural and urban workers so as to disadvantage rural economic performance. The results indicate that rural adequately employed workers are significantly more likely to enter underemployment but once they are underemployed, they also have a higher probability of re‐entering adequate employment. Further, we also found weak evidence that the education level of workers has a lower impact on the probability of moving out of underemployment in rural than in urban areas. In addition, rural women are significantly less likely than their male counterparts and urban workers to enter adequate employment, although the presence of young children does not seem to especially constrain the employment of rural women. The results suggest that labour‐force transition in and out of adequate employment, and particularly underemployment, significantly differ between rural and urban workers and should be taken into account when evaluating employment hardship in rural Canada.     

How Do Health and Social Insurance Programmes Affect the Land and Labour Allocations of Farm Households? Evidence from Taiwan

To protect farmers from health care costs and risks to livelihood, most countries have developed special health and social insurance programmes specifically for farmers. While numerous studies have examined the determinants of participation in these programmes, little is known about how they influence famers' land and labour allocations. Without government‐sponsored health and social insurance, farmers may seek off‐farm employment in order to obtain similar benefits. Conditioning eligibility for social insurance on minimum land holdings and on‐farm work days can lead to delayed retirement and other forms of job lock. We investigate these issues using a unique dataset of 703,287 farms in Taiwan. After controlling for non‐random participation in Taiwan's social insurance programme, we find that the programme increases (decreases) on (off) farm labour supply, and decreases the amount of set‐aside land. This suggests that payments from social insurance substitute for those issued through land set‐aside programmes to some extent, and that failing to account for this substitution increases the cost of achieving both programmes' objectives.     

Modeling farmers' decisions on child labor and schooling in the cocoa sector: a multinomial logit analysis in Côte d'Ivoire

Since 2000, children working in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire have found themselves in the media spotlight. This situation has assumed particular importance because approximately 40% of the world's cocoa production occurs in Côte d'Ivoire. Concerned parties have since taken great interest in this thorny issue. There is a need to better understand the reality of child labor utilization in this sector. This article investigates child labor issues in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire in conjunction with schooling status of children. The study is based on a survey done in 2002, over a representative sample of more than 11,000 members of cocoa households. The multinomial logit model is used to capture choice probabilities across work and/or school options. The results reveal that child labor in cocoa farms and nonenrollment in schools are significant. Moreover, many children are involved in potentially dangerous and/or harmful tasks. Data also highlight gender and age dimensions in the participation of children in tasks and the way labor is allocated. Econometric results generally indicate that the gender and age of children, whether or not the child is the biological child of the household head, parents' education, the origin of the farmer, household welfare, household size, the household dependency ratio, the size of other perennial crop farms, the number of sharecroppers working with the household head, and communities' characteristics are all pertinent in explaining the child work/schooling outcome in the cocoa sector of Côte d'Ivoire.     

Off-Farm Labor Participation Decisions of Married Farm Couples and the Role of Government Payments

The determinants of off-farm work by married farm couples are examined using data from the 2004 Agricultural Resource Management Survey and multinomial logistic regression. Expected government payment is found important in decreasing the likelihood of off-farm work strategies involving work by the husband only or by both husband and wife relative to a strategy of no work by either husband or wife. The marginal impact of government payments on the probability of the wife working off farm alone is found positive suggesting the possibility of nonpecuniary motives for off-farm employment for 21% of farm households in the selected weighted sample.     

Labour Migration and Gendered Agricultural Relations: The Feminization of Agriculture in the Ejidal Sector of Calakmul,Mexico

We examine the nature of the ‘feminization of agriculture’ in the semi‐subsistence, peasant production sector of southeastern Mexico, as associated with male labour out‐migration. Presenting findings from empirical work with smallholder producers, we discuss the impact of men's migration to the United States on women's participation in agriculture and gendered relations of agricultural production. In 2007, we conducted a survey of 155 semi‐subsistence, smallholder households in six ejidos. This survey was supplemented by ethnographic research in a single ejido. Our findings demonstrate the need to distinguish between farm labour and management in this sector, and the potentially significant (but focused) changes in the local relations of agricultural production wrought by gendered patterns of labour migration – specifically in tenure, land‐use decision‐making and the management of hired labour.     

Off‐farm labor market decisions and agricultural shocks among rural households in Kenya

Using household level data from rural Kenya, this article explores whether and how farm households respond to unfavorable agricultural production environments, including any ex post adjustments in off‐farm labor supply in response to unexpected weather shocks. While controlling for a wide range of educational, demographic, and other locational factors, we examine how long‐term weather conditions and specific rainfall shocks influence a household's decision to engage in, and their earnings from, the off‐farm labor market. We find that rural households engage in off‐farm work as a long‐term strategy to deal with the effects of anticipated weather conditions on their farming operations. The analysis does not reveal major short‐term adjustments in off‐farm engagement as a result of specific, unexpected rainfall shocks; these households do however rely on remittance income and petty agricultural wage labor under these circumstances. Holding other factors constant, and conditional on participation, households in areas with a more productive local agriculture tend to earn more from off‐farm work especially in the informal/business sector than their counterparts in regions with a less productive agriculture. As expected, a vibrant local economy in the form of public investment increases the probability of off‐farm participation.     

Interrelated labor decisions of farm couples: a censored response analysis of off‐farm work

Farm couples' labor market responses are partly the discrete choice of entering the off‐farm labor market and partly the continuous choice of off‐farm working hours, given entry. Such a setting is interesting when examining the increasing occurrence of multiple job‐holdings among farmers in Western economies. Most existing analyses of off‐farm labor supply only model the decisions of the farmer, not the joint decisions of the farm couple. This article presents a framework for handling such interrelated discrete/continuous choices, involving also farm production and household consumption. The derived two‐equation sub‐model for husband/wife's censored labor responses is estimated from a 10‐year Norwegian panel data for 342 farms. The results agree to some extent with earlier studies, but are more informative because of the longer panels—which allows a more extensive examination of latent heterogeneity and behavioral persistence—because it provides cross‐effects in the spouses' labor supplies. The results show some interesting differences between how the independent variables influence the labor supply of operator and spouse. This is most evident for the cross‐effects of education, children, and wage rate. Overall, the results strongly support applying a panel‐censoring model that accounts for latent heterogeneity in this context.     

Cultural norms,economic incentives and women’s labour market behaviour: empirical insights from Bangladesh

This paper sets out to explore a seeming puzzle in the context of Bangladesh. There is a considerable body of evidence from the country pointing to the positive impact of paid work on women’s position within family and community. Yet, according to official statistics, not only has women’s labour force participation risen very slowly over the years, but also a sizeable majority of women in the labour force are in unpaid family labour. We draw on an original survey of over 5000 women from eight different districts in Bangladesh to explore some of the factors that lead to women’s selection into the labour force, and into different categories of labour market activity, with a view to gaining a better understanding of the combination of cultural norms and economic considerations that explain these findings.     

A within‐sample investigation of test–retest reliability in choice experiment surveys with real economic incentives

In this paper, we investigate the level of agreement between respondents' choices in identical choice sets in a test–retest choice experiment for a market good with real economic incentives, thus investigating whether the incentivised CE method can be reliable and stable over time. Besides comparing choices, we also test for differences in preferences and error variance when a sample of respondents is given the exact same questionnaire twice, with a time lag of 2 weeks in between. Finally, we examine potential reasons and covariates explaining the level of agreement in choices across the 2 weeks. Across four different tests, we find very good agreement between the two choice experiments – both with respect to overall choices and with respect to preferences. Furthermore, error variances do not differ significantly between the two surveys. The results also show that the larger the utility difference in a choice task, the larger the probability that the respondent will choose the same alternative in the retest. Moreover, the results show that the longer time respondents take to answer the 12 choice sets in the retest, the lower the probability that the respondent will choose the same alternatives in the retest as they did in the test.     

The dynamics of Chinese rural households' participation in labor markets

The work is devoted to the dynamics of labor market participation of Chinese rural households. Based on a theoretical farm household framework the choice between four distinct labor market participation states is empirically analyzed. Using household data over the period 1995–2002 from the province Zhejiang we apply a discrete time hazard approach to analyze households' labor market participation histories. In particular, we investigate the movements between autarky and participation in general and, more specifically, the shifts between part-time and full-time farming. Estimation results suggest significant duration dependence, more precisely, a decreasing risk of moving from one state to another with an increasing time a household occupies one of these states. Further, the likelihoods of starting any participation in labor markets and to start part-time farming are considerably higher than to end participation or to return to full-time farming. In addition, we find that labor market participation decisions are significantly related to several household and farm characteristics.     

Closures of coal‐fired power stations in Australia: local unemployment effects

Around one‐third of Australia's coal‐fired power stations closed between 2012 and 2017, with most of the remainder expected to close over coming decades. Current investment in generation capacity is primarily in the form of alternative power, especially wind and solar. In this paper, we conduct an event study to assess the local unemployment effects of Australia's coal‐fired power station closures, an issue of considerable interest given the prominence of coal‐fired power stations in local economies. Our analysis uses monthly regional labour force survey data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We find that on average there has been an increase in local unemployment of around 0.7 percentage points after closures of coal‐fired power stations, an effect that tends to persist beyond the months immediately after closures. The findings raise questions about appropriate policy responses for dealing with local structural adjustment issues facing coal‐reliant communities.     

Can women's self‐help groups improve access to information,decision‐making,and agricultural practices? The Indian case

Effective agricultural extension is key to improving productivity, increasing farmers’ access to information, and promoting more diverse sets of crops and improved methods of cultivation. In India, however, the coverage of agricultural extension workers and the relevance of extension advice is poor. We investigate whether a women's self‐help group (SHG) platform could be an effective way of improving access to information, women's empowerment in agriculture, agricultural practices, and production diversity. We use cross‐sectional data on close to 1,000 women from five states in India and employ nearest‐neighbor matching models to match SHG and non‐SHG women along a range of observed characteristics. We find that participation in an SHG increases women's access to information and their participation in some agricultural decisions, but has limited impact on agricultural practices or outcomes, possibly due to financial constraints, social norms, and women's domestic responsibilities. SHGs need to go beyond provision of information to changing the dynamics around women's participation in agriculture to effectively translate knowledge into practice.