The determinants of changes in the number of Fishers employed by fisheries household in the Republic of Korea using count data models

Abstract

In the Republic of Korea, the number of fishermen in the fishing industry has been declining since 1967 because of aging and the inadequate scale-up of the industry despite various government policies supporting the development of this sector. Therefore, this study aims to examine the determinants of changes in the number of fishers employed per household in the Korean fishery using several models based on count data. The count data are based on fisheries’ census data obtained from Statistics Korea. We finally selected the zero-inflated negative binomial model among the models. The results demonstrated that fisheries households with fishing vessels, substantial sales revenue, and a high level of education showed a significant decrease in employment. Conversely, fisheries households with long work experience showed a significant increase in employment. The results indicate that capitalization and aging are significant determinants of changes in the number of fishers employed per households in the Korean fishery.