Factors affecting children's participation and amount of labor on family farms

Abstract

Method: A two-stage decision-making model is estimated to explain children's participation and labor supply on family farms using unitary and cooperative bargaining frameworks. Results: Results indicate that parents have different preferences about whether their children work and how much they work. The models incorporate non-economic factors and allow for different stochastic processes in the participation and labor supply decisions. Conclusions: Concerns about children's social development appear to be crucial in deciding children's labor participation, while the child's economic contribution significantly influences both whether they work and how much they work. Some variables affect the two decisions differently. For instance, the higher the parents' education level, the higher the probability children will work but the fewer hours they will work.

Introduction

Family members are important sources of labor for family farm operations. Most farm children work on their family farms in the United States (Light et al., 1985, Saupe & Bentley, 1994). However, there is little knowledge about children's labor supply on family farms. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore why children work on their family farms and how much do they work?

Previous child labor studies have focused on cases in developing countries. These studies highlight economic motivations as a way of explaining children's labor supply (Yotopoulos & Kuroda, 1988). However, the primary motivation for children's labor supply on family farms in the United States is children's social development (Kim & Zepeda, 2004). In addition, agriculture is dangerous; children on family farms experience accidents and even deaths from farm equipment and animals (Landrigan & McCammon, 1997, National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health, 1999). Furthermore, children's work may affect educational activities due to fatigue and lack of time (Greenberger & Steinberg, 1986).

These differences in motivations and social concern for children's labor supply between the United States and developing countries have initiated the need for incorporating non-economic benefits, risks, and the traditional economic motivations into the decision-making process for the children's labor supply on U.S. family farms. Understanding children's labor supply on the family farm is important because it is directly related to two issues of family farm survival: (a) make a living and (b) create a good rural lifestyle.

The fact that family farm households need children as a source of labor implies that many family farms currently encounter labor shortages and associated economic hardships (Lee et al., 1997, Saupe & Bentley, 1994). As a result, the number of family farms has decreased due to financial difficulty. At the same time, most family farm households have the perspective that it is important for parents and children to work and learn together (Kim & Zepeda, 2004, Saupe & Bentley, 1994). Consequently, finding the factors that influence children's labor supply will provide information about farm family well-being and family farm survival.

In order to explore why children work and how much they work, a two-stage decision making model is proposed in this study. Whether children work and how much they work may not be determined by the same factors and/or may not have same signs and magnitudes. A unitary household model (Bryant, 1990) and a Nash-cooperative bargaining model (McElroy & Horney, 1981) provide competing theoretical frameworks for the two-stage decision-making process and the associated empirical analysis. The approaches used in this study will contribute to understanding the importance of non-economic factors in child labor in the United States and to targeting effective policies and education programs on child labor issues.