Conference on International Agricultural Research for Development The impact of agricultural development on agricultural employment and rural labour markets: Evidence from Eastern Europe and Africa

Agricultural employment is the decisive factor for rural well-being in developing countries, like Africa, as well as in many eastern European transition countries. This is because, differently from Western Europe, there are, in many regions, almost no other employment opportunities than farming. Therefore, the decrease of agricultural employment opportunities yields social and economic distress, especially for the most vulnerable, the landless and the small scale farmers who have to seek supplementary income from working casually on other farms. But agricultural employment is subject to many factors. Labour hiring is strongly affected by short term productivity developments. Structural adjustment in the agricultural sector decreases labour by substituting it with capital. This contribution analyses the effects of agricultural development on agricultural labour markets and thus on rural employment. It gives evidence from two regions that may seem different at first glance, but show surprising similarities: Eastern Europe and Western Africa, especially Niger. Using different method of calculating short term an