Rural Wage Employment In Developing Countries

There is a striking scarcity of work conducted on rural labour markets in the developing world, particularly in Africa. This book aims to fill this gap by bringing together a group of contributors who boast substantial field experience researching rural wage employment in various developing countries. It provides critical perspectives on mainstream approaches to rural/agrarian development, and analysis of agrarian change and rural transformations from a long-term perspective. This book challenges the notion that rural areas in low- and middle-income countries are dominated by self-employment. It purports that this conventional view is largely due to the application of conceptual frameworks and statistical conventions that are ill-equipped to capture labour market participation. The contributions in this book offer a variety of methodological lessons for the study of rural labour markets, focusing in particular on the use of mixed methods in micro-level field research, and more emphasis on capturing occupation multiplicity. The emphasis on context, history, and specific configurations of power relations affecting rural labour market outcomes are key and reoccurring features of this book. This analysis will help readers think about policy options to improve the quantity and quality of rural wage employment, their impact on the poorest rural people, and their political feasibility in each context.

Rural youth constitute over half of the youth population in developing countries and will continue to increase in the next 35 years. Without rural transformation and green industrialisation happening fast enough to create more wage employment in a sustainable manner, the vast majority of rural youth in developing countries have little choice but to work in poorly paid and unstable jobs or to migrate. As household dietary pattern is changing, new demands by a rising middle class for diversified and processed foods are creating new job opportunities in food-related manufacturing and services. Agro-food industries are labour-intensive and can create jobs in rural areas as well as ensure food security. Yet the employment landscape along the agro-food value chains is largely underexploited. This study looks at local actions and national policies that can promote agro-food value chains and other rural non-farm activities using a youth employment lens.

Agricultural employment, rural migration, trends, developing countries.

This report adopts a decent work perspective to approach the challenge of promoting employment and reducing poverty in rural areas by examining issues of employment, social protection, rights and social dialogue in rural areas in an integrated way.

High rates of growth in agricultural production need not be incompatible with increased employment, income, and the satisfaction of basic needs in the lower-income developing countries. Emphasizing this theme, the author presents three alternative agricultural development strategies and suggests guidelines for identifying appropriate policies and p

Rural youth constitute over half of the youth population in developing countries and will continue to increase in the next 35 years. Without rural transformation and green industrialisation happening fast enough to create more wage employment in a sustainable manner, the vast majority of rural ...

Originally published in 1987, this book discusses the problem of rural employment in developing countries. It puts forward strategies for action and is intended as an applied development manual to assist those organising rural public works programmes. It draws on the experiences of over 20 countries which have implemented such programmes and it draws out the lessons for developing countries in all continents. It discusses policy making, organisational features of programmes, the need to be realistic in establishing the potential and limitations of programmes and explores the problems of assessing performance.

This book provides an analytical framework for studying the rural non-farm economy (RNFE) in developing countries, as well as a detailed analysis of rural inequalities and agrarian differentiation, demand constraints in the RNFE, and successes and failures of targeted programmes.; The book uses examples - mainly from Asia - to challenge the received ideas and attempts to cast the discussion in a wider context.