Potential Mobility in Agriculture: Some Reasons for the Existence of a Labor-Transfer Problem

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore relationships among selected economic, social-psychological, and personal variables affecting potential mobility in agriculture. Potential mobility was regarded as an attitude, and was defined as the subject's degree of readiness to leave farming. Potential mobility was measured by means of an attitude scale. The influence of the independent variables was examined through the use of association techniques, including a controlled analysis. The statistical analysis supported the hypothesis that potential mobility among farmers is influenced by both economic and noneconomic factors. The most important of these proved to be age, income, and nonfarm work experience. Potential mobility declined with age, was related inversely to income among younger farmers, and increased with nonfarm work experience irrespective of age. It is concluded that improved opportunities for farmers to acquire off-farm work experience may contribute to the solution of the labor-transfer problem in agriculture. problems of surplus production and low farm prices and incomes, has long been a concern of agricultural economists and rural sociologists. During recent years, a conviction has grown among these researchers that the declining economic position of agriculture is closely associated with an inadequate rate of migration from farming. This judgment is succinctly expressed in Schultz's statement, . . the hard core of the United States farm problem is a labor-transfer problem.' While millions of persons have left the farms in response to attractive employment opportunities in the city and to the growing cost-price squeeze in agriculture, such migration has been selective and has for the most part tapped young people at a crucial stage in their lives when they entered a career. Other farm people, in different circumstances, have tended to remain in agriculture, unresponsive to the push-pull forces of