Determinants of Off Farm Employment: Case of Abeshge Woreda, Guraga Zone, SNNPRS, Ethiopia

The aim of this study is to identify the demographic and socio-economic factors that determines off farm participation of households using cross sectional surveying data. The data used for this study is collected from four rural kebeles of farm households with the total sample size of 221, and individual household head was selected by applying multi stage sampling technique. Kebeles are selected purposively based on relative location to the nearby town as well as the type of crops produced, while households are selected randomly from stratified sample frame. In order to meet the objective of the study, ordered logistic regression model was applied. The results from the ordered logistic regression model show that off farm participation of farm households driven by push factors and seasonal variation in farm activities. Therefore, the government should intervene in rural labor market in order to improve the livelihood of rural poor farm households. Key words: Off farm employment, rural households, ordered logit, Abeshge, Ethiopi