Abstract

GUZMAN-GONZALEZ, Isabel et al. The role of non agricultural rural employment in rural communities: a case study in Tepeji del Río, Hidalgo México. agric. soc. desarro [online]. 2005, vol.2, n.2, pp.51-63. ISSN 1870-5472.

Rural families are being increasingly incorporated to activities different to the agricultural ones, since these activities represent an important support to compensate the low agricultural incomes. On the other hand, the tighter interrelation between the countryside and the city facilitates the participation in the employment market and in the formal and informal commerce, widening the development capacities of the rural economies, and causing a decrease on the relative importance of the agricultural income within the total rural income. The rural income is no longer equivalent to the agricultural income in the Mexican countryside. In this essay we analyze the role of the non agricultural rural employment (NARE) through the results obtained by means of interviews and the application of a survey to 70 families of the communities of Sta. María Magdalena and La Cañada de Madero, both located in the municipality of Tepeji del Río de Ocampo in the state of Hidalgo, México. Also, the different sources of non agricultural employment and the income deriving from them, which represents more than 84% of the total income, are examined. lncome obtained through migration is significative for some families; nevertheless, the remunerations coming from local markets have the highest compensating impact of the low agricultural income. The households with better actives of human capital have higher capacity to assign their members to different markets; hence, the diversification of employments occurs in the households with better demographic characteristics. The children of common land owners benefit more than their parents of non agricultural employments, since age and schooling level are key factors to accede to better remunerated employments outside agriculture.

Keywords : Diversification; non agricultural rural employment; non agricultural rural income; educational level.

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