Demand for Seasonal Wage Labour in Agriculture: What Does Family Farming Hide?

Aurélie Darpeix, Céline Bignebat () and Philippe Perrier-Cornet ()

Journal of Agricultural Economics, 2014, vol. 65, issue 1, 257-272

Abstract: type="main" xml:id="jage12019-abs-0001">

This article draws on the agricultural household literature to understand the dynamics of wage labour on farms in a context of family farming. The recent evolution towards an increased use of seasonal wage labour motivates the original distinction of three types of labour: family labour, permanent-wage labour and seasonal-wage labour. Considering the two wage labour types and hiring cost for seasonal workers, our empirical results based on 2000 French data on fruit and vegetable farms suggest that the choice between hiring permanent or seasonal wage labour is not only determined by the seasonality of the activity. Indeed, the characteristics of the local labour market also affect the trade-off between permanent and seasonal wage labour. This result provides insights on the substitutability of the two labour types, especially when the local labour market is tight. Moreover, the substitution of seasonal-wage labour for permanent-wage labour can occur in the agricultural sector as a mean of increasing flexibility as well as reducing costs and commitments. Finally, family labour is found to substitute for wage labour and more specifically for seasonal-wage labour.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/jage.2014.65.issue-1 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Demand for seasonal wage labour in agriculture: what does family farming hide? (2014)
Working Paper: Demand for seasonal wage labour in agriculture: what does family farming hide? (2009)
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:bla:jageco:v:65:y:2014:i:1:p:257-272

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0021-857X

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Agricultural Economics is currently edited by David Harvey

More articles in Journal of Agricultural Economics from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().