Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 3.
Importance of non-farm employment by location (in percentages; standard deviation
in parentheses)
Main occupation
a
Proportion of household
members
b
Proportion of
income
c
(1)
(2)
(3)
Traditional
2.2
( 8.7)
17.2
(23.5)
12.0
(26.0)
Locally linked
9.7
(19.1)
17.7
(23.5)
15.2
(21.2)
Leakage to urban areas
10.3
(15.9)
26.1
(22.9)
25.5
(65.8)
New urban links
16.4
(21.8)
46.8
(27.1)
35.3
(25.1)
Total sample
9.7 (17.8) 27.5 (27.3) 22.2 (38.0)
a
Percentage of household members identifying non-agricultural/non-farm activities as their
main type of employment;
b
Proportion of household members involved in any non-farm (agriculture and non-
agricultural) activities;
c
Proportion of household income derived from non-farm activities.
activities, thus including household members engaged in non-farm activities next to
agricultural production (column 2). Comparing the first two columns we find much
higher values for the share of household members involved in non-farm employment
in all zones. Even in the remote traditional zone, 17% of the household members is
involved in non-farm activities, signalling their general importance. The third indicator
presents the share of non-farm income in total household income (column 3). Despite
the likely underreporting of non-farm earnings in the surveys, they still account for
12 to 35% of household income. This confirms the importance of non-farm activities
found by Reardon et al. (1998), even in remote areas.
Households in the locally linked zones are less involved in non-farm employment
than those in the leakage to urban areas zone, while we expected the opposite, based
on our theoretical framework (see Figure 1). The three indicators in Table 3 all point
towards a growing importance of non-farm activities the closer one gets to urban
areas. This finding may result from the cross-sectional nature of our data, as
opposed to time-series data, following the developments in an area as links to an
urban centre are developing. Another possible cause is that we are unable to
distinguish rural (or local) non-farm employment from urban employment. It may
well be that in the leakage to urban areas zone there is less local and more urban
employment. The higher share of non-farm income in total income (with similar
participation rates in non-farm activities) for the leakage to urban areas zone points
in that direction. Urban wages are, as a rule, higher than rural wages, suggesting a
higher share of urban employment in the leakage to urban areas zone.
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