Assessing adult farm labor statistics: Evidence from a survey design experiment in Ethiopia

Ana Dammert and Jose Galdo

Economics Letters, 2021, vol. 203, issue C

Abstract: Agricultural labor accounts for most of the employment in Sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, few empirical studies have examined the reliability of farm labor measures emerging from household surveys. In this study, we report the results from a survey design experiment in rural Ethiopia that focus on the effects of survey respondent i.e., proxy vs self-report, on adult farm labor. Our results show that proxy respondents generate lower farm labor statistics relative to self-responses for men but not for women. The magnitude of the impacts for men reaches 3.9 percentage points or 4.3% lower rate of participation relative to the mean participation obtained from the self-report. Our results have implications for the current debate on the measurement of agricultural productivity and the collection of survey data in rural areas of developing settings.

Keywords: Survey design; Farm labor; Gender; Labor statistics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C8 J22 Q12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:203:y:2021:i:c:s0165176521001130

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109836

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