Premature deagriculturalisation? Land inequality and rural dependency in Limpopo province, South Africa*

Robert Eastwood, Johann Kirsten and Michael Lipton

Journal of Development Studies, 2006, vol. 42, issue 8, 1325-1349

Abstract: Cross-national regressions reveal abnormally low agricultural workforce shares, given GNP, in developing countries that had historically concentrated land into large capital-intensive farms. We argue that such deagriculturalisation was premature, since its concomitant labour shedding has undesirable outcomes. In a new South African survey, a large proportion of rural households (and working-age persons) was 'dependent', relying for income almost wholly on either migrant remittances or pensions. A separate group (with less poverty and unemployment) relied mainly on local, including own-farm, income. The group was heavily over-represented in one of the three regions, where many more households had significant land.

Date: 2006
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220380600930614 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:42:y:2006:i:8:p:1325-1349

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/FJDS20

DOI: 10.1080/00220380600930614

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Development Studies is currently edited by Howard White, Oliver Morrissey and Ken Shadlen

More articles in Journal of Development Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().