Labour mobility in rural areas

The agricultural sector in Kerala has been undergoing a structural transformation since the 1970’s with large scale shift of cultivation taking place from seasonal and annual food crops to perennial cash crops. Getting suitable farm hands in time for the various farm operations has become a problem particularly for smallholders, especially those engaged in rice cultivation. Many cultivators feel that the ruling wage rates in the rural sector are exorbitantly high. Labour being one of the principal inputs in crop production, farmers shift to crops requiring lower labour input. The proportion of agricultural labourers has been decreasing and also that there is considerable unemployment/underemployment among those continuing as agricultural labourer. Paradoxically, farmers complain about the non-availability of farm hands. In order to unravel this paradox, this study seeks to look into the socio-economic situation in a rural hamlet in Pallichal panchayat in Thiruvananthapuram district.

The basic data were collected through a sample survey, supplemented by semi-structured interviews with farmers and rural labourers. The findings of the study revealed that the structure of labour force has changed over time as a result of reduced new entry into the agricultural sector and the continuing shift to non-agricultural occupations. Faced with the limited employment opportunities in the village and uncertainty in getting local employment, a large number of rural labourers change their occupation or place of work or both. Casualisation of labour is one of the strategies adopted by workers to shift risk, while some others partially shift their occupations. Other thing being equal, age and sex were found to be the major determinants of mobility. The older workers as also women workers are the least mobile spatially. In spite of this shift, there is sufficient number of agricultural labourers to meet the local demand. However, they are mostly elderly persons, and in terms of efficiency of labour they are a heterogeneous lot. Since there is only one set of wage rate in the village cultivators seek to employ only those with higher efficiency. For efficient agricultural workers there is no difficulty in getting employment. The felt shortage of labour is the result of the situation created by the simultaneous existence of a large number of labourers on the one side and of a large number of small cultivators on the other, as well as wide variability of work efficiency of the agricultural labour stock in the village.