Paper short abstract:

We use a mixed methods approach to explore if employment on large farms can lead to welfare gains. We find a low wage level. For many workers employment has been a survival strategy, however, for a group of informants wage work has enabled them to educate their children and accumulate assets.

Paper long abstract:

Set against a backdrop of growing rural populations and shrinking land sizes, this paper asks if employment on large farms can lead to economic welfare gains at the household level. Following a decade-long focus on smallholder agriculture, Large-Scale Farming (LSF) has again been promoted claiming that LSF can generate more jobs and higher wages than the small-scale sector (Collier and Dercon 2013; Oya 2010). The historical literature on LSF in colonial Africa is nonetheless more pessimistic. In African countries where LSF was pursued; the colonial authorities intervened to keep wages low and a class of impoverished workers with limited or no access to land emerged (Arrighi 1970). To enter this debate, we apply a mixed methods approach. We estimate long-run real wages from 1920-2017 using a subsistence-basket approach (Allen 2001). To complement the quantitative measure, we collect Life History Interviews with former farm workers. We find a low real wage, however, there have been periods of improvements during the 1970s and late 1990s. The qualitative data confirms the low level of wages yet convey different life trajectories. For some informants wage work has been a survival strategy. Yet for other informants wage work has allowed them to invest in children's education and accumulate land and livestock. The paper concludes that in a context where it becomes increasingly hard to live off the land; rural wage work might enable poor households to obtain an income to survive and in some cases accumulate important assets.