Rural Labour Market Research Articles

Demographic and labor market transformations in rural areas of Chile

Based on the information provided by the Encuesta de Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional (CASEN) (National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey) of 1990 and 2013, the reconfigurations of the Chilean countryside are analyzed in terms of their demographic trends and labor market restructuring. An ongoing process of depopulation and aging of the rural population is found. Agricultural activities of the rural labor market become less relevant both in terms of jobs and income, showing a strong process of deagrarianisation, salaried workers and feminization of the labor market.

Mobility and Stagnation in India's Rural Labour Market

Transformation of the countryside from agrarian subsistence economy to nonfarm monetised economy is propagated as a precursor of growth and development that involves shifting of labour from farming to off-farm activities. India has started its journey in this path but has a long way to go. Researchers also question the changing pattern of rural labour movement as a positive phenomenon or a distress one. This paper attempts to examine the complexity of changes in rural labour market in India over a quarter of a century to untangle the dynamics. It is observed that the changes taking place are not always conducive to progress as a large part of it is distress-driven. While some social groups are going up the ladder, a large mass of others are stagnating in the same or similar occupations. It appears that agriculture still holds the key to rural development. A three-pronged strategy of agricultural progress, human capital formation and rural industrialisation is necessary for breaking the shackles of continuity and usher in changes that are real rather than apparent.

Land Market Restrictions, Women's Labour Force Participation and Wages in a Rural Economy

AbstractWe analyse the effects of land market restrictions on the rural labour market outcomes for women. The existing literature emphasizes two mechanisms through which land restrictions can affect economic outcomes: collateral value of land, and (in)security of property rights. Our analysis focuses on an alternative mechanism where land restrictions increase costs of migration out of villages. Testable prediction of collateral channel is that wages remain unchanged, but the effects on labour force participation are ambiguous. Insecurity of property rights in land reduces labour force participation, but leaves wages undisturbed. In contrast, if land restrictions work primarily through higher migration costs, labour force participation increases, while wages decline. For identification, we exploit a natural experiment in Sri Lanka where historical malaria played a unique role in land policy. We provide robust evidence of a positive effect of land restrictions on women's labour force participation, but a negative effect on female wages. The empirical results thus contradict a collateral or insecure property rights effect, but supports migration costs as the primary mechanism.

Between Precarity and Paternalism: Farm Workers and Trade Unions in South Africa's Western Cape Province

<p>The labour market in rural areas of South Africa’s Western Cape province has undergone considerable changes over the last thirty years. New labour and tenure legislation protecting farm workers combined with trade liberalisation, the abolition of subsidies and in-migration from other areas of South Africa has significantly reshaped labour on commercial farms. There is an increasing divide between permanent farm workers and a growing pool of precariously employed workers who labour seasonally on farms and are frequently employed through labour brokers. These divisions came to a head in 2012 when workers, many of whom work seasonally on farms, launched a strike that was to last for six months. Trade unions have struggled to organise an increasingly fragmented rural labour market and at the same time negotiate the forms of paternalism that continue to exert a strong influence over rural labour relations. Based on interviews with trade union organisers, this article examines how they have responded to the twin challenges of labour broking and paternalism. The farm strikes highlight the need for a form of social movement unionism that goes beyond wage demands and tackles the multiple factors that influence poverty in rural areas.</p>

Economic Structure and Vulnerability to Recession in Rural Areas

SummaryThe recent recession had a marked impact on the rural labour market in Northern Ireland, particularly within remote rural areas. The extent to which this reflected the underlying economic structure is explored using shift‐share analysis. Remote rural areas suffered from the double impact of the industrial concentration of employment within certain industries and the regional redistribution of employment. They were severely impacted by the contraction in the construction sector and during the early period of the recession the performance of the manufacturing sector. Nevertheless, the labour market within remote rural areas recovered more rapidly compared to urban and accessible rural areas. In particular, the manufacturing sector had a strong positive influence during the recovery period within remote rural areas. The concentration of employment within goods‐producing sectors within Northern Ireland means that rural areas tend to respond more quickly to business cycle fluctuations. In order to reduce the susceptibility of rural areas to recessionary falls in demand it is desirable to build on the strengths of specific sectors that build on the asset base of rural areas, e.g. the development of new products and processes within the food and drinks industry that are primarily rural based.

Non-Formal Vocational Education for Pineapple Farmers: Promoting ‘Relevance’ of Education to Rural Economy

Canned-pineapple is one of the most important exports of Thailand. Unfortunately, the more pineapples the farmers cultivate, the more they are likely to fall into debt and become poorer. Therefore, in 2011, the Phetchaburi College of Agriculture and Technology in collaboration with Kuiburi Fruit Canning Company Limited initiated a non-formal vocational education program tailored to the pineapple farmers who were normally in the age between 40 and 60. The primary aims of the program were to build trust between the farmers and the factories and to equip the farmers with necessary skills for pineapple planting as per the demands of the pineapple-processing factories. Through field visits, semi-structured interviews, and a focus-group interview with the stakeholders, this study sheds lights on the relevance of education to the demands of rural economy which transcends the traditional preparation of employees for rural economic sectors. The well-educated farmers who understand their roles in the farming stage of the food industry’s value chain are as important as formal workers or employees in the breeding, the post-harvest, the production process, as well as the marketing and logistics stages of the value chain. Therefore, non-formal vocational education for the rural labour market should by no means be confined to formal workers in the downstream of the value chain. Informal workers or farmers in the upstream of the value chain have crucial impact on its subsequent stages. Above all, being empowered by relevant non-formal vocational education, the roles of farmers in advancement of rural economy should be extended beyond farming.

Gender and Off‐farm Employment: Evidence from Rural China

AbstractThe goal of the present paper is to examine how the expansion of the economy from 2000 has affected rural off‐farm labor market participation. Specifically, we seek to determine whether off‐farm labor increased after 2000, what forms of employment are driving trends in off‐farm labor and whether gender differences can be observed in off‐farm employment trends. Using a nationally representative dataset that consist of two waves of surveys conducted in 2000 and 2008 in six provinces, this paper finds that off‐farm labor market participation continued to rise steadily in the early 2000s. However, there is a clear difference in the trends associated with occupational choice before and after 2000. In addition, we find that rural off‐farm employment trends are different for men and women. Our analysis also shows that the rise of wage‐earning employment corresponds with an increasing unskilled wage for both men and women.

Youth Employment in Rural Albania: A Theoretical Approach

Employment plays a central role in the social integration of young people. Young people in rural areas are the future of agriculture and other rural industries, but often lack the guidance and support necessary to fully contribute to the development of their communities, thereby fuelling the vicious cycle of rural underdevelopment and poverty. This study aims to gain a better understanding of the youth employment challenges faced in rural areas by bringing together in group discussions with stakeholders (farmers, entrepreneurs in rural areas, associations, etc.). The conclusions from this assignment will feed to a baseline analysis of youth involvement in rural labour market and skills development required and will identify areas where rural development programs can be targeted to increase their contribution to employment creation. This will also suggest formulation of policy recommendations on stimulating new sources of employment, and the conditions for success in stimulating employment in rural areas. The proposed methodology was developed through Desktop Research and direct interviews with focus groups.

The Effects of Improved Roads on Wages and Employment: Evidence from Rural Labour Markets in Indonesia

This paper examines the impact of road quality on labour supply and wages using household panel data from rural Indonesia. The analysis uses fixed-effect instrumental variable estimation by first differencing two-round panel data. First, road projects are found to increase the transportation speed. Second, the empirical results from intra-village variations of household endowments and labour-market behaviour show that an increase in transportation speed raised wages in both non-agricultural and agricultural employment, and was associated with a decline in working time in agricultural employment, for the households whose members are relatively educated. The findings support potential complementarity between road quality and education, implying that the government’s public investments in roads and education should be coordinated to capture cross-augmenting positive impacts in the long run.

Small scale agriculture as a resilient system in rural Romania

A brief overview of rural Romanian phenomena and processes in modern history reveals that rural areas and small rural households were highly stable systems, providing social and economic security. In all history, except during the communist period, small-scale agriculture was and continues to be the main provider of jobs in the rural labour market in the absence of other non-agricultural employment opportunities. In all times, consumption of self-produced food, supported by small farms, has had a leverage effect against poverty. More than that, the statistical information shows that small farms achieve higher levels of economic performance compared to large farms by diversifying their production structure and, through that, they make an important contribution to national food security. In the post-communist period (i.e. after 1989) in Romania, these functions and roles of the small farms have been restored and are widely recognised. If the meaning of ‘socio-economic resilience’ is the ability of an individual, of a household, community, region or country to resist, to adapt and to recover quickly after a crisis, shock or change, the economic and social functions and roles assumed in the transition period by small Romanian rural farms give them the attributes of a resilient answer of the entire Romania to the post-communist changes and shocks.

Rural Handloom Textile Industry in Bihar: A Case of Rural Informal Sector

The informal sector in India, as in other developing countries, is a source of employment and livelihood to an overwhelmingly large proportion of workers. Although the urban sector has been widely studied by social scientists around the world, not much research has been done on the non-agricultural rural informal sector, which has witnessed significant growth in the recent past. Based on an ethnographic field study of the handloom workers of Bihar, India, the article briefly describes the production process in the handloom industry, and drawing from the critics of economic development theories, it tries to explain how social networking in the rural labour market can affect economic outcomes. The findings of the study illustrate a unique kind of social networking in the handloom industry arising from caste and religion, which can be associated with notions of embeddedness and social capital.

Fertility and rural labor market inefficiencies: Evidence from India

Informational frictions are an important source of inefficiency in rural labor markets. I examine the role of family size in mitigating costs that arise due to these frictions. I show that an increase in family size decreases the demand for hired labor in tasks for which worker output and effort are difficult to observe (monitoring intensive tasks). In contrast, in tasks for which worker output is easily observed, I find no relationship between family size and hired labor use. I provide evidence that supervision costs drive the preference for family labor in monitoring intensive tasks. As a consequence, larger families spend less time in supervision. I develop a theoretical framework, that illustrates the empirical challenge of identifying the link between family size and labor demand: factors that determine labor demand on the farm also determine family size. To address this endogeneity problem, I use exogenous variation in fertility induced by both a family planning policy in India, which provides cash incentives for sterilization take up, and income shocks. I show that while neither incentive payments nor income shocks by themselves are valid instruments for completed fertility, their interaction is a valid instrument. I infer that population control policies must take into account market inefficiencies that make larger families profitable.

Determinants of Net Migration to Rural Areas, and the Impacts of Migration on Rural Labour Markets and Self-Employment in Rural Sweden

Across most of Europe, the countryside seems to show a polarized development in which large districts are depopulating, while certain areas, mainly around big- and mid-sized cities, are increasing in population. The latter development is often described in concepts of “rural gentrification” and “rurbanization”, symbolizing a transformation of rural communities to communities with urban values and lifestyles. Most studies of the effects of these processes have focused on social and cultural consequences, as e.g. the displacements of lower-income households with higher-income residents and of rural culture and values with urban ones. This paper examines the phenomenon from another perspective, namely the effects of the “rurbanization” processes on countryside's labour markets and economic life. This paper aims at analysing the determinants of net migration to rural areas in general and to different types of regions, and the impacts of in-migration on rural labour markets, self-employment and other socio-economic conditions in Sweden for the period of 2003–2005. We find that net migration into rural areas increases with the size of adjacent local and regional centres, whereas net migration decreases with the average commuting distance of workers in the rural areas. When comparing in-migrants to rural areas with rural area stayers, our results indicate that the former has lower incomes, a lower employment ratio and a lower degree of entrepreneurial activities. These differences could—at least partly—be explained by the fact that rural area stayers were on average 6 years older than rural area in-migrants, i.e. the two groups were in different stages of their life cycles.

Emprego formal e rotatividade no mercado de trabalho agropecuário no nordeste: 2000-2001 e 2009-2010

The transformations in the Brazilian agricultural production rebounded sharply on labor relations in this sector. The expansion of agricultural activity, followed by the enthronement of technology, had profound consequences for the rural labor market in Brazil. This article aims to analyze the socioeconomic profile and especially the turnover of employees in the agricultural segment of the Brazilian Northeast, a region with significant records of temporary crops, which in recent years has adopted technological innovation in the field. The years 2000 and 2010 were chosen for the analysis of socioeconomic characteristics of agricultural workers in the Northeast, and the 2000-2001 and 2009-2010 biennium to measure the turnover rate. The data are from the Annual Social Information Report (RAIS) and the General Register of Employed and Unemployed Persons (CAGED), of the Ministry of Labor and Employment (MTE). To reach the proposed goals, as a method of analysis, we initially make a brief literature review on the dynamics of the Brazilian labor market, with emphasis on the analysis of the northeastern agricultural labor market. On the basis of descriptive statistics, we analyze the socioeconomic profile of employees in the sector in question. Additionally, we calculate admission and dismissal rates, the rate of net job creation, as well as the turnover in agricultural and farming jobs. The empirical evidence reveals structural changes in the industry: on the one hand, there is an absolute increase in the number of formally hired workers between 2000 and 2010 and, on the other, an increase in the number of workers in the lower income brackets. The turnover rate also increased between the first and the last period analyzed. This indicator shows that especially women, youth and less educated and low-paid persons are those who remain less time employed in the agricultural sector. It is found that turnover/instability in the agricultural market in the Northeast rose over the first decade of the 2000s. This performance can be attributed both to seasonality and to the strong tendency of creation and destruction of jobs after the opening of the Brazilian economy.Keywords: formal agricultural work, turnover, Northeast of Brazil.

How Far is the Employment Transformation of “the Second-Generation Migrant Workers”

The objective of this discussion is to increase the employment quality of “the second-generation migrant workers”. By means of descriptive empirical analysis and theoretical analysis method, the paper conducts the research on the problem of employment quality of new generation migrant workers and the constraint factors on employment transformation. The findings show that the accumulation of income gap between urban and rural areas makes “the second-generation migrant workers” new proletarian class. Triple constraints such as human capital, social capital and psychological capital prolong their employment transformation. Dispatching employment gnaws on migrant workers’ labor rights and interests as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Social discrimination intensifies binary segmentation of urban and rural labor market. It is difficult for migrant workers to achieve professional development.

Job Lock in Rural versus Urban Labor Markets

AbstractWhile the possible negative effect of employer‐sponsored health insurance on labor mobility (job lock) has spawned substantial research, little research has considered differences in job lock between rural and urban areas. Job lock might differ in rural areas because of specific features of rural economies, in particular, the thinness of rural labor markets. This paper estimates measures of job lock for rural and urban areas. Parameter estimates suggest that it is larger in rural areas. The results also indicate that nonwage benefits such as retirement plans, paid vacation, and sick pay are more important factors in married rural workers decisions to change jobs while wages are a more important factor in the transition decisions of single urban workers.

The Impact of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on Rural Labor Markets and Agriculture

This article reviews the impact and effectiveness in implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) at state level as well as at village level with focus on inclusiveness, rural labor markets and agriculture. The paper finds that some states are more effective in implementation then others. The states which effectively integrated MGNREGA works with local planning gained much in terms of employment generation and asset creation leading to increased agricultural potential. The scheme is more inclusive of vulnerable sections of the society including scheduled castes and tribes and also women. Study also highlight the village level differences in implementation and effective implementation leads to reduction of hunger and poverty. More importantly the scheme increased bargaining power of rural laborer in agricultural sector, resulted in higher wage rates, better work environment and less exploitation.

English

This study examines the role of the rural labor market in reducing poverty and improving the well-being of smallholder farmers in rural Ethiopia. Propensity score matching technique is used to estimate the effect of labor market participation on poverty, consumption expenditure and income of smallholder farmers. The overall result indicates that the rural labor market contributes significantly to income growth, consumption expenditure and poverty reduction among smallholder farmers. Particularly, participation in off-farm wage activity has a positive and significant effect on household consumption expenditure and income but a negative and significant effect on the likelihood of a household being poor. Key words: Poverty, rural, labor market, household, smallholder, propensity score.

Rural Non Farm Employment in Assam: Trends and Issues

This study explores the rural labour market in Assam. The Work Participation Rates (WPR) for males has increased during the period 1993-94 to 2009-10, whereas the same for females has been fluctuating around a lower level of 15 to 20 per cent. Thus, unemployment rates for females have been higher than males. A sector-wise distribution of workers shows that the proportion of males employed in the farm sector has been declining in favour of the Non-Farm Sector (NFS), while the females are more concentrated in the farm sector. Thus, females stand in a more disadvantageous situation in the rural labour market as indicated by their low WPR, higher unemployment rates and low level of diversification into NFS. However, gender equality is necessary for growth. This is more so with regard to education and employment. India has introduced the concept of inclusive growth in the Eleventh Five Year Plan. Inclusive growth ensures opportunities for all sections of the population, with a special emphasis on the poor, particularly women and young people, who are most likely to be marginalised. A rapidly growing population in India has not only increased the size of the rural labour force but has also led to fragmentation of land holdings. Thus, this sector alone cannot create additional employment opportunities, even in high growth agriculture states of India. This has led to the growth of a vibrant non-farm sector. The study comes up with the suggestion that the NFS, with its greater potential of employment generation, can not only solve the unemployment problem, but can also lead to the increased access of women to resources and employment opportunities.

Decent Work in Rural Regions of IRAN

Purpose: Labor market is one of the most important markets in Iran as in many developed and developing countries. However, although attention to this market has always been at the forefront of economic planning, but in most cases, quantity matters more than quality in this market. It is also visible as regional differences especially the case in urban areas. Therefore, the study of the quality of labor market in rural regions is very important in each aspect. Various indices can be used to evaluate the quality of labor market, decent work is one of those. Therefore, this paper attempts to evaluate the rural areas in terms of this indicator. Methodology: The numerical taxonomy method is used to separate homogeneous areas from non-homogeneous regions and TOPSIS method is applied to assimilate the parameters in homogeneous areas. Finding: The results show that both of Tehran and Sistan and Baluchestan Provinces are situated in non-homogeneous regions in terms of decent work. In addition, this indicator is improved only about Mazandaran, Qom and Kohgiluyeh and Boyerahmad provinces in the final year of the forth economic development program in comparison with first year of this plan. In addition and based on the results of this study, rural areas according to the decent work index haven’t gone to the homogeneity and there are obvious differences between the labor markets in rural areas. Research limitation: ILO introduced a set of 30 decent work indices in order to enable countries to assess and evaluate their job market. While, only 9 indicators is possible to calculate considering to available data in rural areas of Iran. Hence, creating the possibility for achieving to all of decent work and thus calculating the indicators of decent work in rural areas as a whole is the strategy of the future. Practical implications: The results of this study suggest that rural areas is not homogenous regions in terms of decent work indices and the decent work indicators in 2009 compared to 2005 decreased in most rural areas. Hence, according to the market policies, the rural-urban migrations cannot be expected to decrease and so it is necessary to promote decent work indicators in rural areas. Original/value: In this study in addition to quantitative aspects (decrease in unemployment rate and job creation), the qualitative dimension the rural labor market is assessed for the first time in these areas, an approach that could be considered by labor market policy makers as a whole and policy makers in the field of rural areas of Iran specially.