IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/arerjl/31465.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Regional Differences In The Contribution Of Off-Farm Work To Income Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • El-Osta, Hisham S.
  • Bernat, G. Andrew, Jr.
  • Ahearn, Mary Clare

Abstract

This paper uses the concept of the Gini Coefficient and data from the 1991 Farm Costs and Returns Survey (FCRS) to measure the role of off-farm income and that of other income sources in the size distribution of farm operator households' total personal income. Disaggregated FCRS data by region and by level of participation in off-farm employment show that nonparticipating farm operator households have, as a group, higher income inequality than participating households. The results also indicate that, irrespective of the off-farm work status of the farm operator household, the distribution of income among households in the North Central region is least unequal and that in the West is most unequal.

Suggested Citation

  • El-Osta, Hisham S. & Bernat, G. Andrew, Jr. & Ahearn, Mary Clare, 1995. "Regional Differences In The Contribution Of Off-Farm Work To Income Inequality," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 24(1), pages 1-14, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:arerjl:31465
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.31465
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/31465/files/24010001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.31465?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. Gunter, Lewell & McNamara, Kevin T., 1990. "The Impact of Local Labor Market Conditions on the Off-Farm Earnings of Farm Operators," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(1), pages 155-166, July.
    2. Schneeberger, Kenneth C. & West, Jerry G., 1972. "Marginal Farms--A Micro Development Opportunity," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 4(1), pages 1-4, July.
    3. Boisvert, Richard N. & Ranney, Christine K., 1990. "Accounting For The Importance Of Nonfarm Income On Farm Family Income Inequality In New York," Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-11, April.
    4. Larson, Donald K. & Carlin, Thomas A., 1974. "Income And Economic Status Of People With Farm Earnings," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 6(2), pages 1-7, December.
    5. Gunter, Lewell F. & McNamara, Kevin T., 1990. "The Impact Of Local Labor Market Conditions On The Off-Farm Earnings Of Farm Operators," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 22(1), pages 1-11, July.
    6. Daniel A. Sumner, 1982. "The Off-Farm Labor Supply of Farmers," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 64(3), pages 499-509.
    7. Jacob Mincer, 1958. "Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income Distribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(4), pages 281-281.
    8. Chen, Chau-Nan & Tsaur, Tien-Wang & Rhai, Tong-Shieng, 1982. "The Gini Coefficient and Negative Income," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 34(3), pages 473-478, November.
    9. Larson, Donald K. & Carlin, Thomas A., 1974. "Income and Economic Status of People with Farm Earnings," Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(2), pages 73-79, December.
    10. Lerman, Robert I. & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1989. "Improving the accuracy of estimates of Gini coefficients," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 43-47, September.
    11. Brian W. Gould & William E. Saupe, 1990. "Changes in the Distribution of Income and Wealth of Farm Households: Evidence from Wisconsin Panel Data," Review of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 12(1), pages 31-46.
    12. Daniel J. Slottje & Kathy J. Hayes & Joyce Shackett, 1992. "Labour Force Participation, Race And Human Capital: Influence On Earnings Distributions Across States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 38(1), pages 27-37, March.
    13. Lerman, Robert I & Yitzhaki, Shlomo, 1985. "Income Inequality Effects by Income," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(1), pages 151-156, February.
    14. Berrebi, Z M & Silber, Jacques, 1985. "The Gini Coefficient and Negative Income: A Comment," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 37(3), pages 525-526, September.
    15. Jean Kinsey, 1985. "Measuring the Well-Being of Farm Households: Farm, Off-Farm, and In-Kind Sources of Income: Discussion," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 67(5), pages 1105-1107.
    16. Reddy, Wenkateshwar K. & Findeis, Jill L., 1987. "Decomposition Of Income Distribution Among Farm Families," Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 16(2), pages 1-9, October.
    17. Reddy, V. K. & Findeis, J. L. & Hallberg, M. C., 1988. "Determinants of Off-farm Labor Participation and Impacts on Income Distribution Among U.S. Farm Families," Miscellaneous Series 257745, Pennsylvania State University.
    18. Graham Pyatt & Chau-nan Chen & John Fei, 1980. "The Distribution of Income by Factor Components," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 95(3), pages 451-473.
    19. Shorrocks, A F, 1982. "Inequality Decomposition by Factor Components," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 193-211, January.
    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. Mishra, Ashok K. & Holthausen, Duncan M., 2002. "Effect of Farm Income and Off-Farm Wage Variability on Off-Farm Labor Supply," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 31(2), pages 1-13, October.
    2. Sahrbacher, Amanda, 2012. "Impacts of CAP reforms on farm structures and performance disparities: An agent-based approach," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 65, number 65.
    3. Mishra, Ashok K. & El-Osta, Hisham S., 2005. "Decomposition of Variability in Farm Household Assets and Debt," Journal of Agribusiness, Agricultural Economics Association of Georgia, vol. 23(2), pages 1-20.
    4. Kimhi, Ayal, 2009. "Does Non-Farm Income Increase Farm-Household Income Inequality? Evidence from Three Continents," 2009 Conference, August 16-22, 2009, Beijing, China 51433, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    5. El Benni, Nadja & Finger, Robert, 2013. "The effect of agricultural policy reforms on income inequality in Swiss agriculture - An analysis for valley, hill and mountain regions," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 638-651.
    6. Blank, Steven C., 2005. "Hedging with off-farm income: implications for production and investment decisions across farm sizes," 2005 Annual Meeting, July 6-8, 2005, San Francisco, California 291741, Western Agricultural Economics Association.
    7. Mishra, Ashok & El-Osta, Hisham & Gillespie, Jeffrey M., 2009. "Effect of agricultural policy on regional income inequality among farm households," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 325-340, May.
    8. O'Donoghue, Erik J. & Key, Nigel D. & Roberts, Michael J., 2005. "Does risk matter for farm businesses? The effect of crop insurance on production and diversification," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19397, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Shrestha, Sundar S. & Findeis, Jill L., 2005. "Space, Government Payments, and Off-Farm Labor Response of Principal Farm Operators: A County-Level Analysis," 2005 Annual meeting, July 24-27, Providence, RI 19511, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    10. Mishra, Ashok K. & El-Osta, Hisham S., 2001. "Decomposition Of Variability In Assets And Debt Of Farm Households In The U.S," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20608, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Mishra, Ashok K. & El-Osta, Hisham S., 2002. "Risk Management Through Enterprise Diversification: A Farm-Level Analysis," 2002 Annual meeting, July 28-31, Long Beach, CA 19711, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    12. Jabłoński Łukasz, 2019. "Inequality in Economics: The Concept, Perception, Types, and Driving Forces," Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe, Sciendo, vol. 27(1), pages 17-43, March.
    13. Kimhi, Ayal, 2009. "Land Reform and Farm-Household Income Inequality: The Case of Georgia," Discussion Papers 54159, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Agricultural Economics and Management.
    14. Zelda Okatch & Abu Siddique & Anu Rammohan, 2013. "Determinants of Income Inequality in Botswana," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 13-15, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    15. 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).
    16. Hopkins, Jeffrey W. & Morehart, Mitchell J., 2000. "Distributional Analysis Of U.S. Farm Household Income," 2000 Annual Meeting, June 29-July 1, 2000, Vancouver, British Columbia 36517, Western Agricultural Economics Association.

    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. Mishra, Ashok & El-Osta, Hisham & Gillespie, Jeffrey M., 2009. "Effect of agricultural policy on regional income inequality among farm households," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 325-340, May.
    2. El-Osta, Hisham S. & Morehart, Mitchell J., 2009. "Welfare Decomposition in the Context of the Life Cycle of Farm Operators: What Does a National Survey Reveal?," Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 38(2), pages 1-17, October.
    3. Boisvert, Richard N. & Ranney, Christine K., 1990. "Accounting For The Importance Of Nonfarm Income On Farm Family Income Inequality In New York," Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-11, April.
    4. Antonio Abatemarco & Massimo Aria & Sergio Beraldo & Michela Collaro, 2023. "Measuring Access and Inequality of Access to Health Care: a Policy-Oriented Decomposition," CSEF Working Papers 666, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    5. Simone Severini & Giuliano Di Tommaso & Robert Finger, 2019. "Effects of the Income Stabilization Tool on farm income level, variability and concentration in Italian agriculture," Agricultural and Food Economics, Springer;Italian Society of Agricultural Economics (SIDEA), vol. 7(1), pages 1-22, December.
    6. El Benni, Nadja & Finger, Robert, 2013. "The effect of agricultural policy reforms on income inequality in Swiss agriculture - An analysis for valley, hill and mountain regions," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 638-651.
    7. Severini, Simone & Tantari, Antonella, 2014. "The contribution of different off-farm income sources and government payments to regional income inequality among farm households in Italy," Bio-based and Applied Economics Journal, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA), vol. 3(2), pages 1-17, August.
    8. Hisham S. El-Osta, 2020. "Life-Cycle and Its Impact on the Disparity in Economic Well-Being among U.S. Sole Proprietor Households: Evidence from Two National Surveys," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 7(1), pages 1-14, January.
    9. Sahrbacher, Amanda, 2012. "Impacts of CAP reforms on farm structures and performance disparities: An agent-based approach," Studies on the Agricultural and Food Sector in Transition Economies, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Transition Economies (IAMO), volume 65, number 65.
    10. Peter Lindner, 2015. "Factor decomposition of the wealth distribution in the euro area," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(2), pages 291-322, May.
    11. Tom Van Ourti & Philip Clarke, 2008. "The Bias of the Gini Coefficient due to Grouping," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-095/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    12. Medeiros, Marcelo & Souza, Pedro H.G.F., 2013. "The State and income inequality in Brazil," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt584222f0, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    13. Cecilia García-Peñalosa & Elsa Orgiazzi, 2013. "Factor Components of Inequality: A Cross-Country Study," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(4), pages 689-727, December.
    14. Severini, Simone & Tantari, A., 2012. "How direct payments and their reform have affected farm income inequality in Italy?," 2012 First Congress, June 4-5, 2012, Trento, Italy 124099, Italian Association of Agricultural and Applied Economics (AIEAA).
    15. Cecilia Garcia Peñalosa & Orgiazzi, E., 2011. "GINI DP 12: Factor Components of Inequality. A Cross-Country Study," GINI Discussion Papers 12, AIAS, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies.
    16. Babulo, Bedru & Muys, Bart & Nega, Fredu & Tollens, Eric & Nyssen, Jan & Deckers, Jozef & Mathijs, Erik, 2009. "The economic contribution of forest resource use to rural livelihoods in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 123-131, March.
    17. Marco Ranaldi, 2016. "On the Measurement of Functional Income Distribution," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 16051, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    18. Wan, Guang Hua, 2001. "Changes in regional inequality in rural China: decomposing the Gini index by income sources," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 45(3), pages 1-21.
    19. Stéphane Mussard & Michel Terraza, 2009. "Décompositions des mesures d'inégalité : le cas des coefficients de Gini et d'entropie," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 75(2), pages 151-181.
    20. Marco Ranaldi, 2018. "On the Measurement of Functional Income Distribution," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01379229, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor and Human Capital;

    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:arerjl:31465. 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/nareaea.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.