The Agricultural Exit Problem: An Empirical Assessment
This paper documents the development of agriculture�s share in total employment in the developing world, and relates it to developments in per capita income. As suggested by Engel's Law, it finds a strong and robust negative correlation between GDP per capita and the share of the labor force em...
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okr-10986-92142021-04-23T14:02:44Z The Agricultural Exit Problem: An Empirical Assessment Bezemer, Dirk Hazell, Peter World Development Report 2008 This paper documents the development of agriculture�s share in total employment in the developing world, and relates it to developments in per capita income. As suggested by Engel's Law, it finds a strong and robust negative correlation between GDP per capita and the share of the labor force employed in agriculture. Based on this result, the rates of exit from agriculture by 2015 for different regions of the world plus China and India are projected. The results show that Asian countries have or soon will reach a tipping point in their agricultural transformation when the absolute size of the agricultural workforce will begin to decline and large numbers of agricultural workers can be expected to leave agriculture by 2015. If Asia is to significantly reduce its levels of rural-urban income inequality, then the exit from agriculture will need to be even larger. The situation in Africa is more sanguine. If African countries continue to grow slowly if at all, then their agricultural work forces will continue to increase to 2015, even though agriculture�s employment share will fall slightly. The analysis shows little change in LAC, MENA or EE&CA. 2012-06-26T15:41:56Z 2012-06-26T15:41:56Z 2006 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9214 English CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/ World Bank Washington, DC: World Bank Africa Europe and Central Asia Latin America & Caribbean East Asia and Pacific South Asia |
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Digital Repository |
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Foreign Institution |
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Digital Repositories |
building |
World Bank Open Knowledge Repository |
collection |
World Bank |
language |
English |
topic |
World Development Report 2008 |
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World Development Report 2008 Bezemer, Dirk Hazell, Peter The Agricultural Exit Problem: An Empirical Assessment |
geographic_facet |
Africa Europe and Central Asia Latin America & Caribbean East Asia and Pacific South Asia |
description |
This paper documents the development of agriculture�s share in total employment in the developing world, and relates it to developments in per capita income. As suggested by Engel's Law, it finds a strong and robust negative correlation between GDP per capita and the share of the labor force employed in agriculture. Based on this result, the rates of exit from agriculture by 2015 for different regions of the world plus China and India are projected. The results show that Asian countries have or soon will reach a tipping point in their agricultural transformation when the absolute size of the agricultural workforce will begin to decline and large numbers of agricultural workers can be expected to leave agriculture by 2015. If Asia is to significantly reduce its levels of rural-urban income inequality, then the exit from agriculture will need to be even larger. The situation in Africa is more sanguine. If African countries continue to grow slowly if at all, then their agricultural work forces will continue to increase to 2015, even though agriculture�s employment share will fall slightly. The analysis shows little change in LAC, MENA or EE&CA. |
author |
Bezemer, Dirk Hazell, Peter |
author_facet |
Bezemer, Dirk Hazell, Peter |
author_sort |
Bezemer, Dirk |
title |
The Agricultural Exit Problem: An Empirical Assessment |
title_short |
The Agricultural Exit Problem: An Empirical Assessment |
title_full |
The Agricultural Exit Problem: An Empirical Assessment |
title_fullStr |
The Agricultural Exit Problem: An Empirical Assessment |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Agricultural Exit Problem: An Empirical Assessment |
title_sort |
agricultural exit problem: an empirical assessment |
publisher |
Washington, DC: World Bank |
publishDate |
2012 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9214 |
_version_ |
1764408896779190272 |