Mobility of the masses

AN interesting aspect of rural livelihood system is mobility. We can take up the issue of mobility of rural households -- along occupation or land ownership scale -- to understand the dynamics that rural households are face with in response to the change of three I's: Infrastructure, Incentives, and Institutions.
In Bangladesh, and till today, research is scant on this score. Fortunately, however, the Brac-backed survey of 2010 households in 62 villages allows us to pick up the panel and observe the mobility of same households over a time period, say, 2000 to 2008.
Occupational mobility
First, consider the case of occupational mobility. Rural households are engaged in various types of occupations under agricultural or non-agricultural sector. Do they stick to a particular occupation forever?
Let us begin with the poorest one: agricultural and non-agricultural labour. A priori reasoning would suggest that they are likely to be less mobile and least responsive to changing I's. We observe that only one-third of rural households with agricultural labour as primary occupation in 2000 continued with the same occupation in 2008, and roughly two-thirds shifted primary occupation.
That is, majority of rural households that once relied on agricultural labour as prime source of survival have changed primary occupation between 2000 and 2008.
Where did this vast pool of the poor go? Well, about one-third left labour and adopted farming as primary occupation, 14 percent embraced non-agricultural labour, and roughly one-tenth went to services.
The fact that former agricultural labour turned into present farmer speaks of a growing tenancy market in rural areas. Large and medium farms went for non-farm pursuits, leaving land in the hands of the landless labourers. Growth of non-farm activities pulled a portion into services and non-agricultural labour.
Consider the case of non-agricultural labour. Again, 43 percent of the non-agricultural labour of 2000 maintained the early positions found in 2008, and the rest changed primary occupation.
One-fifth of them went to farming, 15 percent served as agricultural labour, and 12 percent to services. We can possibly argue the change in primary occupations of the poor took place in response to changes in institutions (tenurial arrangements), infrastructure (roads for transport, petty trading, and services), and incentives (higher wage).
The least mobile among rural households seems to be the farmers and the service holders. For example, three-fourths of farm households of 2000 continued farming in 2008 and one-fourth changed gears.
Most of the deserters went to services and very few spread out to other occupations. Like farm households, 70 percent of service households also stuck to their past occupation. A bulk of the deserters settled with farming. By and large, rural households change their primary occupation; the poor segment does it more visibly than the non-poor segment.

Mobility across land ownership
We now take up the issue of mobility across land ownership scale. From field level data, we notice that roughly 70 percent of the landless households of 2000 continued to be landless in 2008, and one-fourth of them graduated to marginal farm households, and a feeble five percent as small farms.
In other words, only 30 percent of landless households of 2000 could climb up the ladder by 2008.
This is not surprising, given the fact that there is acute scarcity of land. Among the marginal farms of 2000, 54 percent remained marginal in 2008 and the rest changed status. For example, one-fourth of them turned into landless (deteriorated) and one-fifth became small and above farms (improved).
About three-fourths of the small farms of 2000 appeared to still be so in 2008. One-fifth deteriorated by turning into landless and marginal households. About 70 percent of medium and large farms of 2000 retained their old status in 2008, 30 percent witnessed deterioration by falling into small and other groups.
Thus, it appears that improvements in institutions, incentives, and infrastructure could help the poor earn a living through changes in primary occupations. In a land scarce country like Bangladesh, tenancy reforms, provisions for infrastructure, and thickness of labour market could be of immense help for poverty reduction.

Abdul Bayes is a Professor of Economics at Jahangirnagar University. He can be reached at: [email protected].