Leaving the Household Out of Family Labour? The Implications for the Size-Efficiency Debate

Deborah Johnston and Hester Le Roux

The European Journal of Development Research, 2007, vol. 19, issue 3, 355-371

Abstract: The debate about the inverse relationship between farm size and productivity has rarely focused on the issue of family labour. We argue that theory about the relative efficiency of such labour is based on simplistic assumptions about its supervisional advantages given a coalescence of intra-household incentives. These assumptions do not take account of the literature on household decision making, which suggests that the incentives of family labour may be far more complex. Nor does it consider the literature on farmworker productivity, which suggests a wider set of factors might lead to efficiency differences between family labour and hired labour. We end by considering the implications of these issues for the literature on farm productivity and on land redistribution. Le débat sur la relation inverse entre la taille et le rendement d'une exploitation agricole s'est rarement intéressé à la main d'oeuvre familiale. Nous soutenons que la théorie sur l'efficacité relative de cette main d'oeuvre est fondée sur des hypothèses simplistes quant aux avantages en matière de supervision à utiliser la main-d'oeuvre familiale eu égard à une combinaison d'incitations intrafamiliales. Ces hypothèses ne prennent pas en compte la littérature sur la prise de décision au sein des ménages qui suggère qu'un éventail plus complexe de facteurs détermine les incitations de la main-d'oeuvre familiale. Le débat ne s'intéresse pas non plus à la littérature sur la productivité des exploitations agricoles qui suggère que les écarts de rendement entre main-d'oeuvre familiale et main-d'oeuvre salariée sont la conséquence d'un éventail de facteurs nettement plus large. Nous terminons en considérant les implications de ces discussions pour la littérature sur la productivité des exploitations agricoles et sur la redistribution des terres.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1080/09578810701504412

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