Proletarianisation, land, income and living conditions of farm labourers in Kenya

In some areas in sub-Saharan Africa a rural proletariat has emerged, consisting mainly of labourers living and working on plantations and large mixed farms. Besides these fully proletarianized estate workers, there is also a category of workers that can be labelled 'semi-proletarianized'. They live outside the agricultural estates, perform seasonal agricultural wage labour and still have control over some means of (re)production, usually a small piece of land. Based on a survey of large farms and households conducted in 1989 in Kenya's Trans Nzoia District, the present authors investigate whether differences in the degree of proletarianization of workers are reflected in differences in socioeconomic situation and living conditions (such as access to a latrine and improved drinking water, the number of household members per room, level of food consumption, nutritional condition). They also compare the situation of labourers with that of a group of non-labourers (households in which nobody had performed any agricultural wage labour in the year preceding the survey). They conclude that in terms of land and income as well as living conditions, labourers are disadvantaged when compared with non-labourers. With respect to the labourers, a higher degree of proletarianization coincides with a lower level of income but not necessarily with poorer living conditions.ASC – Publicaties niet-programma gebonde