WORK PARTICIPATION, MOTIVATION, AND BENEFIT RECEIPT FROM OFF-FARM WORK ON U.S. FARMS: A HOUSEHOLD BARGAINING APPROACH
Open Access
- Author:
- Bharadwaj, Latika
- Graduate Program:
- Agricultural Economics
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 11, 2006
- Committee Members:
- Stephen Michael Smith, Committee Member
Cynthia Ann Brewer, Committee Member
Carolyn Elizabeth Sachs, Committee Member - Keywords:
- health insurance
motivations
labor supply - Abstract:
- The goal of this study was to further understanding of farm household behaviors and adjustment as a unit (joint decision-making), and at the individual level relative to participation in off-farm work. The study contributes to the literature by extending earlier empirical research on off-farm participation decisions of the farm woman and her spouse/partner using a static Nash Bargaining Model with agricultural production in the household to analyze the labor allocation decisions of individuals in a farm household. Participation in off-farm work was found to be increasing with age, more education, presence of older children, high debt-asset ratio, and commuting zone population growth rate, and decreasing with presence of young children, commuting zone unemployment rate and amount of land owned. Very few studies have tried to explore factors affecting work motivations and specifically analyzing the impacts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in combination with individual characteristics, family characteristics, farm-related factors, financial characteristics, and local labor market characteristics on labor market participation, and none in the context of farm populations working off-farm. Ordered probit models incorporating a correction for sample selectivity are estimated for specific work motivations (wanted the money for family household expenses; supporting farm expenses; wanted benefit; wanted to develop or use job skills; wanted to get out of the house, see people; wanted to have own source of income). In addition, the six specific work motivations are divided into intrinsic and extrinsic motivations to study the impacts of motivations on work outcomes by estimating multinomial logit models of alternative participation-motivation choices: no work, work with extrinsic motivation and work with intrinsic motivation. Results for the ordered probit models indicate that motivation to support farm expenses is important among women aged in their thirties or forties, but changes to meeting or seeing other people in the early fifties and sixties. Higher education supports the motivation of maintaining skills rather than working to get out of the house and see other people. Farm women are less likely to be motivated to work off-farm to support farm expenses when children are less than 6 years of age or when they are between the ages of 6 to 11, inclusive. However, they are motivated to work off-farm for meeting or seeing people when children are between the ages of 6 to 11 inclusive. Results for the multinomial logit indicate that individual characteristics inluding different categories of age and education are important for farm women working for intrinsic or extrinsic motivation; however, work with extrinsic motivation (work for external rewards) is more likely at higher levels of educational attainment. With regards to presence of children in different age groups, results indicate that farm women are less likely to work off-farm with intrinsic or extrinsic motivations, and more likely to stay on the farm or at home, when the children are less than six years in age or between ages 6 to 11, inclusive. In terms of local labor market characteristics, a low commuting zone unemployment rate increases the likelihood of working with extrinsic motivation and a large farm reduces the probability of working off-farm for intrinsic reasons. Finally, the study uses a multinomial logit model to estimate the influence of benefit receipt (health insurance) on labor participation, taking into account the joint decisions of farm women and men. Households with a high degree of educational attainment were found to be working at full-time jobs with health insurance and were adjusting their labor participation decisions especially in case of presence of children according to demands of the situation, making sure that there is health insurance for the family, either through the farm woman’s job or through the spouse’s off-farm job. It was interesting to observe that despite operating large farms, farm women may still work at part-time jobs perhaps for social or professional reasons such as maintaining their skills.