Rural Employment in Africa: Trends and Challenges

Abstract

Africa's rural population continues to expand rapidly, and labor productivity in agriculture and many rural-off farm activities remain low. This review uses the lens of a dual economy and the associated patterns of agricultural, rural, and structural transformation to review the evolution of Africa's rural employment and its inclusiveness. Many African countries still find themselves in an early stage of the agricultural and rural transformation. Given smaller sectoral productivity gaps than commonly assumed, greater size effects, and larger spillovers, investment in agriculture and the rural off-farm economy remains warranted to broker the transition to more and more productive rural employment. The key policy questions thus become how best to invest in the agri-food system (on and increasingly also off the farm) and how best to generate demand for nonagricultural goods and services that rural households can competitively produce. Informing these choices continues to present a major research agenda, with digital technologies, the imperative of greening, and intra-African liberalization raising many unarticulated and undocumented opportunities and challenges. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Resource Economics, Volume 14 is October 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Decent and equal work in agri‐food systems: Evidence from Peru

“…There is no universal agreement on how to measure job quality (Burchell et al, 2014;Christiaensen & Maertens, 2022;Sehnbruch et al, 2015). Most studies focus on a single dimension of job quality or rely on composite multidimensional indices to account for multiple monetary and nonmonetary quality dimensions of a job (Christiaensen & Maertens, 2022). We use three complementary measures of job quality that are explained in more detail consecutively:…”

“…Sectoral wage differences can arise from differences in labor productivity, which is generally believed to be low in agriculture, higher in the nonfarm food sector, and highest in nonfood sectors (Christiaensen & Maertens, 2022; Reardon, 2015). Wages and job quality likely increase with labor productivity because employers can afford to pay higher wages and to provide nonwage worker benefits when fewer hours are needed for the same produce; and because more productive sectors expand, thereby increasing the demand for labor and creating upward pressure on wages.…”

Guest editorial: Introduction to the special issue on productive employment in rural farm and non-farm sectors in sub-Saharan Africa

“…Access to productive employment is essential for poverty reduction and the inclusion of the poor in wider society. Productive employment is characterized by (1) sufficient income to permit workers and their dependents a level of consumption above the poverty line; (2) stability of this income over time (absence of vulnerability) and (3) decent working conditions and working hours (Christiaensen and Maertens, 2022; Szirmai et al ., 2013). Job creation is one of the drivers of poverty alleviation and food security.…”

Policy interventions and productive employment in rural sub-Saharan Africa: a gender-differentiated meta-analysis

“…The results show that public investments in rural areas and public policies that facilitate access to productive resources are likely to enhance productive employment. Productive employment is defined as a decent and stable work that allows the worker and its dependents to get sufficient income to live above the poverty line (Christiaensen and Maertens, 2022; Szirmai et al ., 2013). Beyond income, productive employment is a factor of social inclusion because poverty reduction and social inclusion are linked to economic development (Kremer et al ., 2009).…”

“…During the last two decades, a large body of literature has investigated the importance and features of rural non-farm sector (Davis et al, 2010;Winters et al, 2009Winters et al, , 2010Haggblade et al, 2007;Barrett et al, 2001;Lanjouw andLanjouw, 2001 Barasa et al, 2022;Basu and Kashyap, 1992;Christiaensen and Maertens, 2022;Gaddis et al, 2023;Tesfaye and Nayak, 2022). A major conclusion from these studies is that non-farm activities in rural areas are the norm rather than the exception (Davis et al, 2016).…”