Employment and income implications of transitions towards more sustainable global diets

The effect of global diet shifts on human health, the natural environment, and the financial cost of obtaining food has been extensively quantified. The current study complements these quantifications by examining the economy-wide consequences of global diet shifts. We used a computable general equilibrium model to quantify the changes in employment and income in all geographic regions of the globe in the year 2050 under a global shift towards more sustainable human diets. These more sustainable diets are lower in livestock-derived foods, higher in fruit and vegetables, and lower in refined sugar than diets under the current trajectory for food demand out to the year 2050. Our results show that transitioning towards more sustainable diets at the global scale in sub-Saharan Africa will decrease employment in the livestock sector and increase employment in the crop sector, with an overall reallocation of labor from the industry and services sectors to the agriculture sector. West Africa was the region of the globe that encountered the greatest decline in income of 14% as a result of the global diet shift, driven by the reallocation of labor into the lower value-added agriculture sector and driven by West Africa’s high share of total household expenditure spent on food. These findings have important implications for understanding trade-offs and developing strategies to equitably improve livelihoods within the broader context of food system transformation.