New thinking needed to address the rural employment crisis

A further 106 million people will have joined the rural labour force in the developing world by 2015. What work will they find and where? Can wages rise enough to allow people to escape poverty? Can enough additional jobs be created in rural areas or must more people migrate to cities?

A briefing paper from the Overseas Development Institute in the UK provides an overview of rural employment trends.

An estimated 450 million of a total agricultural labour force of 1,100 million are hired workers. Much of this work is increasingly casual. The apple farms of South Africa’s Western Cape, for example, have replaced permanent staff with contract labour. In India, the planting and harvesting of most commercial crops in irrigated areas is done by contract labour gangs.

Rural work, especially farming, remains difficult, monotonous and dangerous. About 170,000 agricultural workers are killed each year. Hardly any workers are protected from sickness, accidents or unemployment. Discrimination against female workers is common, with many being paid considerably less than male counterparts. In India, female agricultural labourers earn just 72 percent of male rates.

For activities that require little land, factory-style operations applying economies of scale are possible. Industrialised farming is set to become more important as it produces the higher-value foods increasingly demanded as urban incomes rise.

Thanks to dramatic improvements in transport and communications many poor households now combine farm and off-farm activities seasonally. There has been a striking increase in temporary and circular migration. In Andhra Pradesh, India a recent study in six villages shows that more than 40 percent of villagers commute daily to urban centres. China has over 125 million rural-urban migrants. Lack of data means the importance of internal movements is not fully appreciated.

The authors note that:

• Rural public works programmes rarely create sustainable jobs.
• Too little vocational training is provided in rural areas.
• The outright prohibition of child labour has rarely made much difference in rural areas.
• While health and education services in most rural areas are lacking, some countries are making corrective efforts. In Latin America cash transfers to rural poor people are offered on condition that children go to school and pre-schoolers attend clinics.

The critical problem for rural employment is that much labour leads only to poverty-level wages. Policymakers must recognise that industrial forms of farming – such as horticulture, flowers, fish farming, pigs and poultry – may create some new jobs. However, the major contribution to rural employment will have to come from higher productivity and better returns to self-employed farmers and those operating small rural businesses.

Governments need to:

• encourage the non-farm economy in order to create jobs and put upward pressure on rural wages
• invest in rural peoplethrough basic education, skills, health and early nutrition interventions to reduce current disparities between rural and urban populations
• reduce the costs and risks of migration through the provision of information, improved transport, remittances services and making rights to public services and protection portable – there are innovative migrant-support schemes in India to learn from
• push for better labour standards, end child labour and tackle gender inequalities
• explore new ways to provide social protection that is no longer linked to specific full-time jobs.

Source(s):
‘Rural employment and migration: In search of decent work’, Overseas Development Institute, Briefing Paper 27, October 2007, by Steve Wiggins and Priya Deshingkar, October 2007 (PDF) Full document.

id21 Research Highlight: 22 January 2008

Further Information:
Steve Wiggins
Protected Livelihoods and Agricultural Growth Programme (PLAG)
Overseas Development Institute
111 Westminster Bridge Road
London, SE1 7JD
UK

Tel: +44 (0) 2079220373
Fax: +44 (0) 2079220399
Contact the contributor: s.wiggins@odi.org.uk

Overseas Development Institute, UK

Priya Deshingkar
Overseas Development Institute
111 Westminster Bridge Road
London, SE1 7JD
UK

Contact the contributor: p.deshingkar@odi.org.uk

Other related links:
'Exploring links between agriculture, natural resources and migration in India'

'China on the move: managing rural-urban migration'

'Shifting the environmental costs of economic growth onto India’s poor people'

'When urban meets rural: opportunities for people on the edge'