Die Bestimmungsgründe der Beschäftigung in der Landwirtschaft : eine quantitative Analyse der kurzfristigen Anpassung der Größe und Struktur des Arbeitskräftebestandes der Landwirtschaft im früheren Bundesgebiet 1971 bis 1991 (The determining reasons of employment in the agri-cultural sector : a quantitative analysis of the short-term adjustment of the size and structure of the labour stock in the agricultural sector in the former Republic of Germany from 1971 to 1991)

"In literature of agricultural economics the view is frequently held that the structural change in the agricultural sector, in particular in the form of adjustment in the size and structure of the labour stock, follows economic determining factors to only a very limited extent, and therefore results in permanent imbalances of the factor input there. This theory was also renewed by a more recent OECD study (1994) and confirmed with a quantitative study of the agricultural labour market. This article presents the results of a far more detailed analysis of the annual changes in the labour stock which occurred between 1971 and 1991 in the western German agricultural sector. For this, firstly the development in the size and structure of the stock is shown and explained. It can be seen from this that the people employed in the agricultural sector form a very heterogeneous group, differing not only with respect to their main activities in the business, the household and in nonagricultural employment and with respect to them being members of the ownermanager's family, as family workers, as opposed to the (paid) workers from outside the family, but also among other things differing with regard to the duration of their activity in the agricultural sector as full- or part-time family workers or as permanent or non-permanent paid workers and in their function as owner-manager, farm successor or simply workers performing activities. In addition to this there is the fact that the age structure of those employed in agriculture is very unfavourable and that the proportion of women and in particular of low skilled people is very high. These characteristics also determine the possibilities of adjustment to changed agricultural economic and general economic basic conditions. The agricultural businesses in the former Republic of Germany are organised almost without exception as family businesses and are, in addition, usually run by the owner and the members of his family as so-called secondary businesses. This form of organisation is related to the factthat the steadily decreasing demand for workers in the agricultural sector is mainly covered by self-recruiting, there is therefore little inflow of nonagricultural workers. In contrast, however, workers from outside the family play a very slight role, although this is increasing relatively, if very slowly. Among the family workers and in particular the owner-managers, there is a higher than average proportion of older people, over 44 years of age, and if they are employed full-time in agriculture, they have little chance of taking up another job outside the agricultural sector. This means on the other hand that the annual changes in the number of places of work (businesses) and farm owners in agriculture is influenced in the main by the number of older family workers, including the farm owners, and the waged workers, because these leave the jobs principally due to their age and are only then replaced in some cases by younger family workers or waged workers. This means both that only younger workers have the choice between an agricultural and a non-agricultural job, and that they opt in favour of a part-time or full-time job outside the agricultural sector if the agricultural economic conditions deteriorate in particular in the form of a negative change of the sectoral terms of trade, or if there has been an increase in the wage rates outside the agricultural sector. In the regression analyses carried out, the place of work and the differentiated categories of worker according to sex and main type of work in the business or in the business and the household as well as outside the business were examined as dependent variables. One of the main results shown was that the annual movement of workers into and out of the agricultural sector does in fact react to changes in agricultural economic and the general economic conditions, so far as it does not concern workers whose age, lack of vocational training or family commitments (husbands or wives) prevent them from taking up a full- or part-time job outside the agricultural sector. All in all, however, the agricultural sector possesses only a marginal and constantly decreasing importance on the labour market, with regard to its role in both the supply and the demand of workers." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))