IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ragrar/334359.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Surplus Labour in Crop Production: Evidence from Select Villages in India

Author

Listed:
  • Dhar, Niladri Sekhar

Abstract

This paper attempts to measure the magnitude of surplus labour in crop production in different agroecological regions of India. The study also examines the gender composition of surplus labour in agriculture. The first finding is that actual labour use in crop production is a small proportion of total labour supply: the proportion varies from a minuscule 8 per cent to only 28 per cent. The second feature of the study is that it measures the employment gap month-wise. The gap between actual labour absorption and labour supply varies across villages, seasons and months. In some cases, there are specific times of the year when labour demand in crop production, in fact, exceeds the supply of labour. There has been no recent study that attempts to put numbers on the extent and gender composition of unemployment in different cropping systems and month by month. The data for the study come from nine villages surveyed by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies. Our findings show, in general, that the current labour-carrying capacity of crop production leaves a large section of the working population, especially women, unemployed or underemployed. The more detailed findings provide insights into crop production and unemployment in specific agrarian contexts.

Suggested Citation

  • Dhar, Niladri Sekhar, 2021. "Surplus Labour in Crop Production: Evidence from Select Villages in India," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 11(2).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ragrar:334359
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/334359/files/Surplus_Labour_in_Crop_Production_Evidence_from_Select_Villages_in_India.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bezu, Sosina & Barrett, Christopher B. & Holden, Stein T., 2012. "Does the Nonfarm Economy Offer Pathways for Upward Mobility? Evidence from a Panel Data Study in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 1634-1646.
    2. Robinson, Warren C, 1969. "Types of Disguised Rural Unemployment and Some Policy Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(3), pages 373-386, November.
    3. Dhar, Niladri Sekhar & Kaur, Navpreet, 2013. "Features of Rural Underemployment in India: Evidence from Nine Villages," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 3(1), July.
    4. Estudillo, Jonna P & Otsuka, Keijiro, 1999. "Green Revolution, Human Capital, and Off-Farm Employment: Changing," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 47(3), pages 497-523, April.
    5. Lovell Jarvis & Esperanza Vera-Toscano, 2004. "Seasonal Adjustment in a Market for Female Agricultural Workers," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 86(1), pages 254-266.
    6. Ashok Mathur, 1964. "The Anatomy Of Disguised Unemployment," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 16(2), pages 161-193.
    7. Lloyd G. Reynolds, 1969. "Relative Earnings and Manpower Allocation in Developing Economies," The Pakistan Development Review, Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, vol. 9(1), pages 14-34.
    8. Lanjouw, Jean O. & Lanjouw, Peter, 2001. "The rural non-farm sector: issues and evidence from developing countries," Agricultural Economics, Blackwell, vol. 26(1), pages 1-23, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Davis,Benjamin K. & Di Giuseppe,Stefania & Zezza,Alberto & Davis,Benjamin K. & Di Giuseppe,Stefania & Zezza,Alberto, 2014. "Income diversification patterns in rural Sub-Saharan Africa : reassessing the evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7108, The World Bank.
    2. Van den Broeck, Goedele & Swinnen, Johan & Maertens, Miet, 2017. "Global value chains, large-scale farming, and poverty: Long-term effects in Senegal," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 97-107.
    3. Bezu, Sosina & Holden, Stein, 2014. "Are Rural Youth in Ethiopia Abandoning Agriculture?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 259-272.
    4. Keijiro Otsuka & Jonna P. Estudillo & Takashi Yamano, 2010. "The Role of Labor Markets and Human Capital in Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Asia and Africa," Asian Journal of Agriculture and Development, Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), vol. 7(1), pages 23-40, June.
    5. Adamseged, M.E. & Frija, A. & Thiel, A., 2018. "Dynamics of rural livelihoods and rainfall variability in Northern Ethiopia," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277441, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    6. Mintewab Bezabih & Andrea Mannberg & Eyerusalem Siba, 2014. "The land certification program and off-farm employment in Ethiopia," GRI Working Papers 168, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    7. Feuerbacher, Arndt & McDonald, Scott & Dukpa, Chencho & Grethe, Harald, 2020. "Seasonal rural labor markets and their relevance to policy analyses in developing countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    8. Rijkers, Bob & Söderbom, Måns, 2013. "The Effects of Risk and Shocks on Non-Farm Enterprise Development in Rural Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 119-136.
    9. Komikouma Apelike Wobuibe Neglo & Tnsue Gebrekidan & Kaiyu Lyu, 2021. "The Role of Agriculture and Non-Farm Economy in Addressing Food Insecurity in Ethiopia: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-22, April.
    10. Musa Hasen Ahmed & Kumilachew Alamerie Melesse, 2018. "Impact of off-farm activities on technical efficiency: evidence from maize producers of eastern Ethiopia," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-15, December.
    11. Kowalski,Julia & Lipcan, Alina & McIntosh, Katie & Smida, Remy & Sørensen, Signe Jung & Seff, Ilana & Jolliffe, Dean, 2017. "Non-farm Enterprises in Rural Ethiopia: improving Livelihoods by Generating Income and Smoothing Consumption?," Ethiopian Journal of Economics, Ethiopian Economics Association, vol. 25(2), May.
    12. M. Shahe Emran & Francisco H. G. Ferreira & Yajing Jiang & Yan Sun, 2023. "Occupational dualism and intergenerational educational mobility in the rural economy: evidence from China and India," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 21(3), pages 743-773, September.
    13. Chung Thanh Phan & Thang Tat Vo & Diem Thi Hong Vo, 2023. "Can microcredit reduce vulnerability to poverty? Evidence from rural Vietnam," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 608-629, February.
    14. Khondoker Abdul Mottaleb & Dil Bahadur Rahut, 2019. "Impacts of Improved Infrastructure on Labor Allocation and Livelihoods: The Case of the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge, Bangladesh," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 31(4), pages 750-778, September.
    15. Jan Fałkowski & Maciej Jakubowski & Paweł Strawiński, 2014. "Returns from income strategies in rural Poland," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 22(1), pages 139-178, January.
    16. Almeida, Alexandre N. & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E., 2019. "Agricultural productivity, shadow wages and off-farm labor decisions in Nicaragua," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 99-110.
    17. Ma, Wanglin & Vatsa, Puneet & Zheng, Hongyun & Rahut, Dil Bahadur, 2022. "Nonfarm employment and consumption diversification in rural China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 582-598.
    18. Maja Micevska & Dil Bahadur Rahut, 2008. "Rural Nonfarm Employment and Incomes in the Himalayas," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 57(1), pages 163-193, October.
    19. Barmon, Basanta Kumar, 2016. "Impacts of the Alternate Wetting and Drying Irrigation System on Modern Varieties of Paddy Production in Bangladesh: A Case Study of Jessore District," Bangladesh Development Studies, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), vol. 39(3-4), pages 77-104, sept-dec.
    20. Zeeshan & Geetilaxmi Mohapatra & Arun Kumar Giri, 2022. "How Farm Household Spends Their Non-farm Incomes in Rural India? Evidence from Longitudinal Data," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(4), pages 1967-1996, August.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ragrar:334359. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/faskoin.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.