IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/aareaj/118071.html

Determinants of non-farm labour participation rates among farmers in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Lim-Applegate, Hazel
  • Rodriguez, Gil
  • Olfert, M. Rose

Abstract

In recent decades, non‐farm employment has become prevalent and an important source of income for Australian farm families. However, models identifying the relative significance of the socioeconomic variables influencing non‐farm employment participation rates have never been estimated in Australia. In this paper, a bivariate probit model of non‐farm employment participation rates was estimated, using information from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics (ABARE) 1994–1995 surveys. It was found that the participation decision of the farm operator and spouse is likely to be jointly determined, that non‐farm employment participation increased at a declining rate with age among farmers and that university education enhances the participation rates particularly among spouses. Participation rates were also higher among spouses with lower other income and with no dependent children.

Suggested Citation

  • Lim-Applegate, Hazel & Rodriguez, Gil & Olfert, M. Rose, 1997. "Determinants of non-farm labour participation rates among farmers in Australia," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 46(01), pages 1-14.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:aareaj:118071
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.118071
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/118071/files/1467-8489.00168.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.118071?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:cup:jagaec:v:22:y:1990:i:01:p:155-166_00 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Menno Pradhan & Arthur Van Soest, 1997. "Household Labor Supply In Urban Areas Of Bolivia," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(2), pages 300-310, May.
    3. Ashok K. Mishra & Barry K. Goodwin, 1997. "Farm Income Variability and the Supply of Off-Farm Labor," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 79(3), pages 880-887.
    4. Dora L. Costa, 2000. "From Mill Town to Board Room: The Rise of Women's Paid Labor," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 101-122, Fall.
    5. Gronau, Reuben, 1977. "Leisure, Home Production, and Work-The Theory of the Allocation of Time Revisited," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1099-1123, December.
    6. S. Martin & F. McLeay, 1998. "The Diversity of Farmers' Risk Management Strategies in a Deregulated New Zealand Environment," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(2), pages 218-233, June.
    7. Alfons Weersink, 1992. "Off-farm Labor Decisions by Ontario Swine Producers," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 40(2), pages 235-251, July.
    8. Robinson, Chris & McMahon, Pat J. & Quiggin, John C., 1982. "Labour Supply And Off-Farm Work By Farmers: Theory And Estimation," Australian Journal of Agricultural Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 26(01), pages 1-16, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kimty Seng, 2015. "Welfare Effects of Diversification on Farm Households in Cambodia," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(4), pages 2645-2663.
    2. Chang, Hung-Hao & Mishra, Ashok, 2008. "Impact of off-farm labor supply on food expenditures of the farm household," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 657-664, December.
    3. Boisvert, Richard N. & Chang, Hung-Hao, 2006. "Does Participation in the Conservation Reserve Program and Off-Farm Work Affect the Level and Distribution of Farm Household Incomes?," 2006 Annual meeting, July 23-26, Long Beach, CA 21277, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Rahut, Dil Bahadur & Scharf, Maja Micevska, 2012. "Livelihood diversification strategies in the Himalayas," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 56(4), pages 1-25, December.
    5. Chang, Hung-Hao & Boisvert, Richard N., "undated". "Does Participation in the Conservation Reserve Program and/or Off-Farm Work Affect the Level and Distribution of Farm Household Income?," Working Papers 57035, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    6. Peter Howley & Emma Dillon & Thia Hennessy, 2014. "It’s not all about the money: understanding farmers’ labor allocation choices," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 261-271, June.
    7. Neil I. Huth & Brett Cocks & Neal Dalgliesh & Perry L. Poulton & Oswald Marinoni & Javier Navarro Garcia, 2018. "Farmers’ perceptions of coexistence between agriculture and a large scale coal seam gas development," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 35(1), pages 99-115, March.

    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. Peter Howley & Emma Dillon & Thia Hennessy, 2014. "It’s not all about the money: understanding farmers’ labor allocation choices," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 31(2), pages 261-271, June.
    2. Raimondi, Valentina & Curzi, Daniele & Bertoni, Danilo & Olper, Alessandro, "undated". "Off-farm Labour Decision of Italian Farm Operators," Working papers 157120, Factor Markets, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    3. Dewbre, Joe & Mishra, Ashok K., 2002. "Farm Household Incomes And U.S. Government Program Payment," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19780, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    4. Alex Almeida & Boris Bravo-Ureta, 2011. "Agricultural Productivity And Off-Farm Labor Decisions By Heads And Spouses In Nicaragua: A Semiparametric Analysis Using Panel Data," ERSA conference papers ersa11p508, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Mukherji, Nivedita, 2004. "Government policies and graft in an economy with endogenous labor supply," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 423-434, February.
    6. Ahearn, Mary Clare & El-Osta, Hisham S. & Dewbre, Joe, 2002. "The Impact Of Government Subsidies On The Off-Farm Labor Supply Of Farm Operators," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19825, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    7. Peter Howley & Emma Dillon & Thia Hennessy, 2012. "The role of non-pecuniary benefits in the labour allocation decision of farmers," Working Papers 1202, Rural Economy and Development Programme,Teagasc.
    8. Kimhi, Ayal, 1991. "Part-Time Farming Versus Specialization of Farm Operators in Farm or Off-Farm Work: A Multinomial Logit Analysis," Working Papers 197771, University of Maryland, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    9. Jonathan Gershuny & John Robinson, 1988. "Historical changes in the household division of labor," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(4), pages 537-552, November.
    10. Ruojin Zhang & Gene Lai, 2025. "Risk Preferences and Rural Self‐Employment Behavior: Theory and Empirical Evidence From China," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 56(6), pages 1103-1118, November.
    11. Ahn T. Le, 2003. "Female Labour Market Participation: Differences Between Primary and Tied Movers," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 03-17, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    12. 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.
    13. François Gardes, 2021. "Endogenous Prices in a Riemannian Geometry Framework," Post-Print halshs-03325414, HAL.
    14. Lyubov A. Kurkalova & Helen H. Jensen, 2000. "Relative Growth of Subsidiary Farming in Post-Soviet Economies: A Labor Supply Story," Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) Publications 00-wp249, Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) at Iowa State University.
    15. Rania Gihleb & Osnat Lifshitz, 2022. "Dynamic Effects of Educational Assortative Mating on Labor Supply," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 302-327, October.
    16. Nicolas Hérault & Guyonne Kalb, 2022. "Understanding the rising trend in female labour force participation," Fiscal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 43(4), pages 341-363, December.
    17. Dipankar Purkayastha, 1999. "Patriarchal Monopoly and Economic Development," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 61-78.
    18. Benjamin Bennett & Isil Erel & Léa H. Stern & Zexi Wang, 2020. "Paid Leave Pays Off: The Effects of Paid Family Leave on Firm Performance," NBER Working Papers 27788, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Tirgari, Mohammad & Nejadhashemi, A. Pouyan & Marquart-Pyatt, Sandra, 2026. "A new Procedure for Determining Economic and Non-economic Zones of Production Function for Nitrogen Fertilizer Input," 2026 Annual Meeting, July 26 - 28, 2026, Kansas City, Missouri 404782, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Xuan Chen & Jing Chen & Chien-Yu Huang, 2019. "Too Risky to Focus on Agriculture? An Empirical Study of China’s Agricultural Households’ Off-Farm Employment Decisions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-18, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:aareaj:118071. 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/aaresea.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.