The Gender Gap in Agricultural Productivity: The Role of Market Imperfections

This paper hypothesises that labour and credit market imperfections – by discouraging off-farm income-generating activities and restricting access to inputs, respectively – affect female farm productivity more deeply than male productivity. The paper develops a theoretical model, which decomposes the contribution of various market imperfections to the gender productivity gap. Empirically we show that agricultural labour productivity is, on average, 44 per cent lower on female-headed plots than on those managed by male heads. 34 per cent of this gap is explained by differences in labour market access and 29 per cent by differences in credit access.     

Impacts of Migration on Household Production Choices: Evidence from China

Abstract

The great migration from Chinese farms to cities during the past several decades ranks among the most economically consequential of modern population movements. We use a national sample of rice-producing Chinese households to examine the effects of that migration on agricultural production. Our assessment involves evaluating four alternative theories of labour market equilibrium in the framework of an expanded agricultural household model. Migration’s farm production impacts appear to be slight, not on account of farm labour market perfections or remittance-financed technological improvements, but by substituting a reduction in leisure and other low-return activities for lost labour.     

Farm tractorisation,productivity and labour employment: A case study of Indian Punjab

The objective of this paper is to determine the effects of farm tractorisation on output and human labour employment on Punjab farms in India. The residts seem to suggest that, this far, the use of tractors has resulted in higher output and more employment. The authors believe that the threat from farm tractorisation is not all that great; the use of tractors is likely to be confined to certain areas only, and there too, any displacement of labour should be possible to control through appropriate public policies.     

Inverse Productivity or Inverse Efficiency? Evidence from Mexico

Using a unique panel data set from rural Mexico, we find strong evidence of a negative relationship between farm size and both productivity and technical efficiency: large farms not only have a lower value of output per hectare than small farms, they also produce further from the efficiency frontier. Our findings suggest that, in spite of the ongoing transformation of agricultural supply chains and economists’ recommendations for small farmers to exit crop production, there may be sustained advantages for smallholder farms. Our analysis offers new insights into inverse-farm size relationship, the productivity–efficiency relationship, and the use of stochastic frontier techniques.     

How Accurate is Food-for-Work Self-Targeting in the Presence of Imperfect Factor Markets? Evidence from Ethiopia

Effective targeting of transfers is a key issue in public policy to combat poverty. Much faith is presently placed in self-targeting mechanisms such as public employment schemes supported by food-for-work transfers. Where targeting errors have been observed, these are usually attributed to mismanagement of key operational details, such as the project's wage rate. Using a unique data set from rural Ethiopia, we demonstrate that targeting errors may also have structural causes in some low-income countries. We hypothesise that imperfect factor markets generate a predictable dispersion across households in reservation wage rates that breaks down the unconditionally positive relation between income and shadow wages on which the theory of self-targeting public employment programmes rests. Our results confirm that the inaccuracy of FFW targeting stems from the fact that, in rural Ethiopia, higher income households are endowed with more labour per unit of land or animal. Due to poor factor markets in land and livestock these labour-abundant households have lower marginal labour productivity on farm, thereby depressing the reservation wage rates they find acceptable for FFW participation.     

Land consolidation as a factor for rural development in Moldova

This article draws on data from several recent surveys in Moldova to examine the question of land consolidation within the process of agrarian reform. It suggests that larger individually owned farms produce higher family incomes than smaller ones and thus farm augmentation makes a positive contribution to the well being of the rural population. Also, for farms of a given size, productivity increases as the number of parcels decreases. The article then proceeds to discuss the actual use of various market mechanisms for land consolidation, including leasing as well as buying and selling of land. According to various surveys, farms with leased land are in fact larger than farms that rely on owned land only. The article argues that land consolidation leads to better economic performance, while land leasing is actually used as a market mechanism for consolidation, which benefits both lessees, through increased farm incomes, and lessors, through income from lease payments for their land.     

Decomposing the Labour Productivity Gap between Migrant-Owned and Native-Owned Firms in Sub-Saharan Africa

Migration studies have been primarily based on the movement of individuals from developing to developed economies, with a focus on the impact of migrants on host country wages. In this study we take a different angle by exploring the labour productivity of migrant-owned firms versus native-owned firms in 20 African economies using firm-level data. We find that labour productivity is 78 per cent higher in migrant-owned firms than native-owned firms. Using the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method we find that structural effects account for 80 per cent of the labour productivity gap. Returns to manager education largely explain the productivity advantage of migrant-owned firms over native-owned firms. Interactions with the government, access to finance, informality, and power outages are also considerable contributors to the labour productivity gap.     

Girl Farm Labour and Double-shift Schooling in The Gambia: The Paradox of Development Intervention

This article examines the intensification of Gambian girls’ domestic and farm labour contributions as a result of the introduction of double-shift schooling. Drawing on fieldwork among female farmers and their daughters in Brikama the article puts forth the following arguments: doubleshift schooling facilitates the intensification and increased appropriation of surplus value from girls’ household and farm labour because girls are more readily able to meet gendered labour obligations that are central to the moral economy of the household and to the demands of agrarian production; secondly, double-shift schooling highlights the paradoxical nature of development intervention where, on the one hand, legislation and policy call for a reduction in child labour by increasing access to school and, on the other, neo-liberal educational policy serves to facilitate the intensification of girls’ domestic and farm labour. This paper maintains that the intensification of girls’ workmust be placed within a wider context where children’s — particularly girls — cheap, flexible and/or unremunerated labour is central to the functioning of local and global processes of accumulation.     

Farm size and land productivity in Indian agriculture: A reappraisal

This paper seeks to assess the significance of the celebrated inverse relationship between farm size and land‐productivity in the context of Indian agriculture. It is argued that the inverse relationship does not reflect a superiority of peasant production over wage‐labour‐based production as is often supposed. It exists independently of production relations and thus reflects only a static superiority of small‐scale over large‐scale production. An essential precondition for this superiority, however, is a backwardness of technology. With technological progress involving the introduction of chemical fertilizers, labour‐saving machinery and modern irrigation equipment, the inverse relationship is, therefore, likely to disappear     

The Role of Land Use Consolidation in Improving Crop Yields among Farm Households in Rwanda

Relative to other developing regions, the role of land consolidation in increasing crop yields is poorly understood in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper examines the role of land use consolidation on agricultural productivity among smallholder farmers in Rwanda. Household-level data are used to estimate a fixed-effects model with matched control groups to mitigate selection bias. The study finds a positive association between land use consolidation and crop yields, but only among farm households with landholdings greater than one hectare, which is well above the average farm size in Rwanda. Findings also point to the importance of non-organic fertilisers and irrigation as there appear to be significant benefits associated with further increases in their use among the consolidated farms.     

Gender,Land and Sexuality: Exploring Connections

This article explores links between the issues of sexuality and gendered control over agricultural land. It discusses gendered land rights in several settings, concentrating particularly on agrarian and land reforms. I argue that land redistribution in the “household” model, discussed for Chile and Nicaragua, tends to entrench male household and agricultural control. In contrast, more collective forms, discussed for Vietnam, have displayed economic weaknesses but had potential to undercut such control by socialising women’s labour. Fears about and visions of female sexuality have much to do with backlashes against inclusion of women, either through allowing them membership of cooperatives and collectives or through granting rights such as joint titling to land. In sub-Saharan Africa, there currently exists much discussion of improving women’s control over agriculture and its products. These continue to meet opposition, despite female predominance in agriculture in the region. Thus, even though women work on the land in many societies, this does not give them any automatic “closeness” to nature or say within households. Control over women’s, especially wives’, labour within peasant households, is linked to the manner that their persons and their labour are bound up in this socio-economic form. The article also examines two feminist attempts to configure alternative agricultural forms: the case of a lesbian agricultural collective in the west of the USA and an Indian model of new female-centred households for single women. Heterosexuality as an institution and gender subordination more broadly, as the examples here indicate, have to do not only with sexual practices or identity but extend also to issues of labour and access to crucial resources.     

In Times of Sickness: Intra-household Labour Substitution in Rural Indonesian Households

In many developing countries, households with ill adults suffer not only from diminished labour supply but also from an inability to borrow against future labour income. Intra-household labour substitution may be an important coping strategy for these households. Using information about individual health status provided by Indonesia Family Life Survey, this study finds some evidence that Indonesian farm households cope with chronic illnesses of male adults through intra-household labour substitution. Yet, the results show that this strategy is not effective in the case of severe health shocks and that these households are unable to keep their family farm profits stable.     

Aspects of local government and politics in china: 1955–58

This study, based on work in six villages, seeks insights into the likely effect of the introduction of prospective land‐, water‐, and crop‐management technologies, being researched at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi‐Arid Tropics, on the existing village labour‐use patterns in one major relevant region: peninsular India. Explicit attention is given to the similarities and differences between small and large farms and their relevance to the adoption of the prospective new technologies.

Regional variation in labour utilisation reveals a tremendous employment‐creating potential in the existing tank and well irrigation systems in the Alfisols of peninsular India. The prospective technologies should increase employment, compared with existing technologies, by at least 100 per cent in the Alfisols and by over 300per cent in the deep Vertisols— but with some increase in the seasonal variability of labour demand. Given the existing availability of labour, there will be, with the improved watershed technologies, major farm labour bottlenecks. These should eventually generate increased wage rates and employment potentials. However, even temporary adverse effects on the timelessness of operations could be critical to the success of a double‐cropping and/or intercropping technology aiming at greatly increased yields. This would create demands for selective mechanisation, for example, of threshing.     

The ‘girl effect’: liberalism,empowerment and the contradictions of development

The ‘girl effect’ – the idea that investment in the skills and labour of young women is the key to stimulating economic growth and reducing poverty in the global South – has recently become a key development strategy of the World Bank, the imf, usaid and dfid, in partnership with corporations such as Nike and Goldman Sachs. This paper examines the logic of this discourse and its stance towards kinship in the global South, situating it within the broader rise of ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s empowerment’ as development objectives over the past two decades. Empowerment discourse, and the ‘capability’ approach on which it is based, has become popular because it taps into ideals of individual freedom that are central to the Western liberal tradition. But this project shifts attention away from more substantive drivers of poverty – structural adjustment, debt, tax evasion, labour exploitation, financial crisis, etc – as it casts blame for underdevelopment on local forms of personhood and kinship. As a result, women and girls are made to bear the responsibility for bootstrapping themselves out of poverty that is caused by external institutions – and often the very ones that purport to save them.     

Gender wage inequality and export‐led growth in South Korea

This article investigates the relationship between gender, wage inequality, and export‐led growth in South Korea. The persistent gender wage gap in Korea's manufacturing sector is found to be linked to women's segregation in the country's major export industries where real wage growth has lagged productivity growth, despite favorable market conditions that might drive up women's wages relative to those of men. The interaction of state‐ and firm‐level hiring, training, and promotion practices that structure women's and men's employment opportunities differently appear to have resulted in a relatively weaker fall‐back position for women in labour markets. Econometric results are consistent with the hypothesis that women's weaker fall‐back position limits their ability to bargain for wage increases commensurate with productivity growth. Further, evidence is presented which links gender wage inequality to the growth of Korean exports.     

Unequal Laws and the Disempowerment of Women in the Labour Market: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

Institutions are defined as the set of rules that govern human interactions. When these rules are discriminatory, they may disempower segments of a population in the economic spheres of activity. In this study, we explore whether laws that discriminate against women influence their engagement in the economy. We adopt a holistic approach where we explore an overall measure of unequal laws also known as legal gender disparities and relate it to several labour market outcomes for women. Using data for over 59,000 firms across 94 economies, we find that unequal laws not only discourage women’s participation in the private sector workforce, but also their likelihood to become top managers and owners of firms. Suggestive evidence indicates that access to finance, property ownership, business registration, and labour market constraints are pathways by which legal gender disparities disempower women in the private sector.     

‘We Are All Poor Here’: Economic Difference,Social Divisiveness and Targeting Cash Transfers in Sub-Saharan Africa

While the central thrust of Michael Lipton's work has been the crucial role of productivity gains in small farm agriculture for rural poverty reduction, in many sub-Saharan African countries this desirable outcome has stubbornly refused to materialise, and growing numbers of rural poor people are found persistently to fail to secure even minimal acceptable levels of food consumption. A social protection policy response is to target social cash transfers to the chronic extreme poor. This article focuses on the level of cash transfers relative to income differences between households in the bottom half of the income distribution, and the social tensions that arise from beneficiary selection and exclusion. It is found that cash transfers to target groups such as ‘the poorest 10 per cent’ or the ‘ultra-poor labour constrained’ must be set low, even below the welfare levels they seek to achieve, if they are to avoid socially invidious reshuffling of the income distribution. The article identifies critical trade-offs between the cost and coverage of different types of social transfer, their social acceptability and their political traction, helping to explain the reluctance of governments to adopt scaled-up poverty-targeted transfers as the preferred form of social cash transfer to those most in need in their societies.     

Cross-Country Disparity in Agricultural Productivity: Quantifying the Role of Modern Seed Adoption

Inequality of agricultural labour productivity across the developing world has increased substantially over the past 40 years. This article asks: to what extent did the diffusion of Green Revolution seed varieties contribute to increasing agricultural labour productivity disparity across the developing countries? We find that 22 per cent of cross-country variation in agricultural labour productivity can be attributed to the diffusion of high-yielding seed varieties across countries, and that the impact of such diffusion differed significantly across regions. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy directed at increasing agricultural labour productivity in the developing world.     

Innovation and growth in traditional agriculture of the lower Volta,Ghana

This article addresses the important question of whether foreign direct investment enhances economic growth and labour productivity in Mexico, both from a theoretical and empirical perspective. After briefly reviewing the Mexican experience with net FDI inflows during the 1990s, the article presents a simple endogenous growth model which explicitly incorporates any positive (negative) externalities generated by additions to the foreign capital stock. Using cointegration analysis, the article estimates a dynamic labour productivity function for the 1960-95 period that includes the impact of the growth rate in the stocks of both private and foreign capital (as opposed to the flows) and the economically active population (EAP) (rather than the rate of population growth). The error correction model (ECM) estimates suggest that increases in both private ad (lagged) foreign investment spending, as well as the rate of growth in exports, have a positive and economically significant effect on the rate of labour productivity growth. In addition, the results show that increases in the EAP have a negative and statistically significant effect on the rate of labour productivity growth, while changes in the government consumption variable have a negative but marginally significant impact. The error correction terms of the estimated models are negative and statistically significant, thus suggesting that deviations of actual labour productivity growth from its long-run value are corrected in subsequent periods. Finally the article generates historical simulations from the estimated ECM's and offers some policy recommendations to enhance the positive externalities associated with FDI inflows.