Population Growth and Agricultural Employment in Latin America, with Some U.S. Comparisons

Policy makers usually assume that the industrial sector will expeditiously absorb the growth of the labor force. But urbanization in Latin America is so far ahead of industrialization that continued advocacy of the type of agricultural modernization that encourages speedy off-farm migration may merely add to urban unrest. The hacienda system seems to be near the root of the problem and it has an institutional parallel in the sharecropper South of the United States. The campesino and the cropper are, in some sense, analogous; and evidence is presented to show that latifundia-type farming systems are not as able as family farms to (1) provide security of employment or adequate income necessary to keep workers in farming until a late enough stage of development, and (2) support an educational system that is capable of developing the skills needed for urban employment or for upgrading the rural labor force. The seriousness of the current movement to the cities in Latin America is accentuated since slums—the outward manifestation of underemployment and idleness —are growing faster than ours ever did. An agrarian reform policy of "contrived dualism" is briefly outlined; it may be the most inexpensive way to provide employment and increase effective demand, thus "buying time" for the industrial sector to catch up.