Participation in Informal Off-farm Labor Market and its Impact on Household Income and Food Security in Malawi

Isaac Sitienei, Ashok Mishra (), Jeffrey Gillespie and Aditya Khanal

No 162498, 2014 Annual Meeting, February 1-4, 2014, Dallas, Texas from Southern Agricultural Economics Association

Abstract: Most rural households in Malawi often opt to supplement their farm income with additional casual work on the farms of others (“ganyu” labor). However, there is a growing concern that such informal off-farm work will eventually drive rural households into absolute poverty. Using data from a 2010 Malawi household survey, this study seeks to explore this conjecture, first by examining the factors that motivate rural households to participate in informal off-farm work (ganyu) and later evaluate its outcome. Results from the average treatment effect indicate that participating in ganyu increases an individual‟s annual total off-farm income. On the other hand, it has a negative effect on own-farm income.

Keywords: Consumer/Household Economics; Labor and Human Capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25
Date: 2014-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev and nep-iue
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/162498/files/S ... 2014SitieneiEtAl.pdf (application/pdf)

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:ags:saea14:162498

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.162498

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in 2014 Annual Meeting, February 1-4, 2014, Dallas, Texas from Southern Agricultural Economics Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().