[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/midagr/11102.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Labor Allocation Strategies Of Semi-Subsistence Households In West Africa: A Case Study Of The Diolas Of The Lower Casamance Region Of Senegal

Author

Listed:
  • Dedegbe, Danielle
Abstract
For the great majority of small scale farming households in West Africa, labor is one of their most crucial factors of production. Yet, the dynamics behind these households' patterns of labor allocation are not well understood by planners and policy makers. This study argues that (a) a household's labor allocation behavior is determined by its real opportunity set vis-a-vis the household's basic objectives, (b) a household's real opportunity set is the sum of its main constraints and opportunities after all environmental dimensions have been simultaneously considered, (c) male and female household members do not have the same opportunity sets. The environmental circumstances of the Diola and Mandingized Diola farm households from the Casamance region of Senegal provide the quantitative foundation of the analysis. For each group, an opportunity set for an average household is derived with a special emphasis on gender differentiations. Based on these derived opportunity sets, a household's behavior regarding labor allocation is hypothesized. Hypothesized behaviors are then checked against observed behaviors of labor allocation. Among both groups, household labor allocation strategies seem to reflect a desire of farmers to use their comparative advantage to reduce the adverse effects of their main binding constraints. With respect to farmers' ability to fulfill their basic objectives, the Mandingized Diolas appear to be better off than the Diolas and within each group, men appear to be better off than women.

Suggested Citation

  • Dedegbe, Danielle, 1986. "Labor Allocation Strategies Of Semi-Subsistence Households In West Africa: A Case Study Of The Diolas Of The Lower Casamance Region Of Senegal," Graduate Research Master's Degree Plan B Papers 11102, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:midagr:11102
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.11102
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/11102/files/pb86de01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.11102?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:midagr:11102. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/damsuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.