Mobilité professionnelle et amélioration des revenus des ménages agricoles, le cas des usines Citroën à Rennes

The result of an inquiry made in 1966-1967 into certain aspects of the socio-economic influences of a factor set up near one of the most under-developed regions of inland Brittany, provide elements for the analysis of the means by which and to what extent agricultural occupational mobility is a means of reducing the material poverty of- agricultural workers. Going to work in or factory means, first of all, the end of. low incomes for the workers changing occupations although the majority are only unskilled Workmen. Moreover, in the labour recruiting area industrial Wages tend to increase .the resources of agricultural households or families when the workman from an agricultural background continues to be a member of an agricultural house-hold (55,6 % of workmen who fomerly helped on the family farm live with their parents who are farmers) or as a secondary occupation, runs a farm himself 17, 6 % of those questioned). The number of cases in which, occupational mobility can be a source of equality for the man changing occupations or for his family , is limited by the reluctance of certain workers to leave their agricultural activity — but this reluctance is seen to be less important when the factory is near-by — and by the vequirements of industrial employers ,taking-on workers, especially as far as age and training are concerned. If it is false to believe that industrial decentralization will absorb all agricultural poverty, it does still represent the basis of the struggle against agricultural Workers low incomes.