Agricultural Wage Rates Research Articles

Female Agricultural Workers' Wages, Male-Female Wage Differentials, and Agricultural Growth in a Developing Country, India

The data on Indian agricultural wages for the period 1966-88 reveal a clearly rising trend in female agricultural wage workers' earnings in terms of both nominal and real wages. Because of the Green Revolution, agriculture in India also witnessed during this period phenomenal yield increases of major crops in several agricultural regions. Growth in agricultural output has been attributed largely to the adoption of biochemical technological innovations and expansion of irrigational facilities. The descriptive data on agricultural wages also reveal a few noticeable rural labor market phenomena particularly pertaining to female agricultural wage workers. First, the estimated all-India agricultural average daily real wage rates for male and female wage workers show that female workers' wages continue to be lower than male workers' wages (fig. 1), a trend that holds across the 16 states studied. Second, substantial cross-state differences continue to exist in the daily wage rates of female agricultural wage workers, ranging from as low as Rs 1.72 in Tamilnadu to Rs 4.77 in Punjab. Third, although the overall male-female earnings gap has declined over time (fig. 2), quite large differentials continue to exist across the major agricultural regions of the country. Fourth, and rather surprisingly, some of the regions with relatively high levels of yield and agricultural development are also characterized by a combination of relatively lower female agricultural workers' wages and higher male-female wage differentials than are the poorer states with comparatively low agricultural yields. For example, female agricultural wage workers earn, on the average, only 64% of male workers' wages in Tamilnadu, 67% in Maharashtra, 75% in Haryana, and 78% in Punjab; whereas in relatively

Economic reform and food prices: Evidence from markets in Ghana

This paper investigates trends in food prices in Ghana during 1970–1993. Regression results confirm that real wholesale prices of food have been declining since the 1970s. Price trends in the 1980s are characterized by a downward shift at the beginning of the postreform period and a subsequent continuing downward trend. Despite falling grain prices, we find that agricultural wage rates failed to provide an adequate basis for subsistence, particularly during periods of large seasonal price rises. Many farmers hold grain for both speculation and to smooth income. This view is supported by evidence regarding seasonal price spreads that have been increasing since 1984. We find no support, however, for conclusions of trader manipulation of marketing margins during the adjustment period.

Terms of Trade, Income Distribution, Agricultural Wages and Poverty in India

In the context of on-going structural stabilization and adjustment programmes, it is necessary to examine the impact of changes in agricultural and foodgrains terms of trade on the incomes of various socio-economic groups, agricultural real wages and rural poverty in India. A change in agricultural terms of trade causes a considerable change in the relative distribution of income not only between agricultural producers and consumers but among income classes as well. However, the impact of changes in agricultural (foodgrains) terms of trade on the real incomes of the various groups can not be measured easily. Different groups may be affected differently. Moreover, the immediate impact may be quite different from the intermediate and long-run effects. In this paper, an attempt has been made to examine the relationship between terms of trade, on the one hand, and income distribution, agricultural real wages and poverty, on the other hand. Among the important overall tendencies, we highlight the following: (i) the agricultural terms of trade seems to be an important determinant of the distribution of income, (ii) the real agricultural wage rate is inversely related to agricultural terms of trade, at least in the short-run, and (iii) the agricultural terms of trade is positively related to the rural poverty.

Agricultural wages in Bangladesh: What the figures really show?

The impact of the ‘green revolution’ on poverty has been the subject of much concern and fears that it leads to impoverishment have affected many people in a position to influence agricultural policy. Real agricultural wages rates have been used as an indicator of poverty, in the absence of more direct measurements. This article starts by examining two recent studies of the trends and regional variations of real agricultural wage rates in Bangladesh both of which argue that agricultural growth has not been favourable to real wage rates. One concludes that there has been an ‘alarming’ downward trend since the mid‐1960s, and the other that the contribution of technological change to labour demand has not been strong. Using more recent information and re‐working the original data it appears that these conclusions cannot be supported.

A dynamic econometric model of agricultural wage determination in Bangladesh.

Economists applied data from 1949-1950 and 1980-1981 to a new dynamic model to examine the dynamics of determinants of agricultural wages in Bangladesh, particularly the effect of changes in relative prices of rice (the staple food) and productivity. Just a 20% rise in the price or rice was passed on in the agricultural wage rate within the current year. About 50% was passed on in the long run, however. Therefore an increase in the price of rice reduced the rice purchasing power of agricultural wages in the short and long term. In fact, the importance given to rice in the long run real wage rate was almost the same as the mean proportion of expenditure that an agricultural laborer in Bangladesh committed to rice and closely related food staples. Thus arise in the price of rice in comparison to other goods had limited effects on the long run real wage in terms of the bundle of goods typically consumed, but very adverse effects in the short run placing a high burden on the rural poor. On the other hand, the long run real wage rate fell considerably between the mid 1960s-early 1980s when overall agricultural productivity increased. The economists pointed out that this increased productivity may not have lowered long run real wage rates, but instead mitigating factors may have contributed to this fall. For example, population growth, rising landlessness, and insufficient economic growth in nonagricultural sectors resulted in a consistent growth in the labor supply. In conclusion, this new dynamic model showed that Bangladesh cannot depend only on agricultural growth to reduce the poverty of farmers.

THE IMPACT OF NUTRITIONAL STATUS ON AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTIVITY: WAGE EVIDENCE FROM THE PHILIPPINES*

This paper examines the impact of individual nutritional status on agricultural wage rates in southern Philippine province. Empirical results concur with other studies which have shown a positive relationship between nutritional status and labor productivity, as measured by wages for agricultural laborers and/or own-farm output, after controlling for simultaneity and a number of other effects. However, the authors' result from better height, a cumulative measure of the absence of poor diets and infection in early childhood, rather than from short-run (calorie intake) or medium-run (weight-for-height) proxies of nutritional status. This implies that short-to-medium-run policies designed to improve calorie intakes and weights of adults will have little impact on agricultural productivity. Rather, productivity increases through better health and nutrition will be more fully realized with a substantial lag as better nourished, healthier children attain better adult height. Copyright 1991 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Production Relations and Spatial Variation in Agricultural Wage Rates

Production Relations and Spatial Variation in Agricultural Wage Rates

Regional Supply of Hired Labor to Agriculture

The existence of a wide disparity in labor returns between the farm and nonfarm sectors and considerable variations in agricultural wage rates among regions suggest that there may be real differences in factors affecting the supply of and demand for labor among sectors and regions. A knowledge of these supply and demand structural relationships could be of use to policy makers in developing measures that will help to minimize some of these income and wage discrepancies. In this study, regional supply relations for hired agricultural labor are developed and estimated. Two hypotheses are tested: (a) that members of the hired farm labor force respond to economic stimuli with a distributed lag, and (b) that they participate in a national rather than a regional labor market. The results support both hypotheses. One of the policy implications is that programs which increase nonfarm wages are more effective in the long run in raising farm labor income than programs which raise prices of farm products.

Estimates of Agricultural Employment and Wage Rates

There are two basic approaches to the problem of estimating the number of people working on farms, or in any other sort of establishment for that matter. The first, commonly known as the establishment approach, consists of obtaining information from proprietors in regard to the number of people working in their establishments during a specified reporting period. Either complete enumeration of all establishments can be made, as in Censuses of Agriculture, Manufactures, or Mining; or information can be obtained from a sample of establishments, as is done by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics. The second, known as the population approach, consists of obtaining information about the employment activity of individuals either from them or from members of their households. A complete enumeration can be made, as was done in the 1940 Census of Population; or information can be obtained from a sample of households, as is done by the Bureau of The Census for its Monthly Report on the Labor Force.

Wage Stabilization in Agriculture

WO years have gone by since the passage by Congress of the Stabilization Act of 1942, designed to stabilize wages and prices. During that time much has been heard of the impact of this legislation upon industrial laborers and their employers. Its bearing upon farm labor, on the other hand, has received little attention. The farm wage stabilization program is of interest, not merely as a phase of war-time control of prices and wages, but as a demonstration of the difficulties of including farm wages in any scheme of wage regulation. The large number of small enterprises, the wide variety in working conditions and in methods and amounts of payment, the lack of representative associations of employers and employees able to enter into and maintain contracts, and to furnish representatives to wage boards, create formidable obstacles. It is these, undoubtedly, which have led to the exemption of farm labor from most existing federal legislation relating to wages and working conditions, such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Act. It is worthy of note that in the few states in which farm wage ceilings have been established, the primary motive has been a desire, not to prevent inflation, but to eliminate certain causes of confusion and inefficiency in the farm labor market. From November 1942, when farm wage control was placed under the Secretary of Agriculture, until the following August, only one wage ceiling, covering five counties, was established. Through this experiment farmers became aware that in the wage stabilization machinery they had a means of preventing the spiralling of wages, eliminating labor pirating and lowering the turnover of labor. Consequently, four additional ceilings-three in California and one in Florida-were instituted. During the second year under the Wage Stabilization Act, the rapid rise of agricultural wage rates continued. There were protests from packing houses that high farm wages made it impossible to keep sufficient labor. in the sheds, where wages were prevented from rising by the War Labor Board. In some instances, high farm wages gave rise to requests to OPA for higher prices of farm products. Wage ceilings, however, were still not set primarily as a means of checking inflation, but only at the request