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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Main Authors: Bezemer, Dirk, Hazell, Peter
Language:English
Published: Washington, DC: World Bank 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10986/9214
id okr-10986-9214
recordtype oai_dc
spelling 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
repository_type Digital Repository
institution_category Foreign Institution
institution Digital Repositories
building World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection World Bank
language English
topic World Development Report 2008
spellingShingle 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
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