Characteristics of non-farming wages related to part-time farming structures in the south Tohoku region: A sharp tendency of farm retirement and farmers' job structure in the nuclear disaster area in Fukushima Prefecture
2018
Nonaka, A. (Tohoku Agricultural Research Center, NARO (Japan))
The objective of this study is to clarify the farming and non-farming job structure among farmers in a 'zone in preparation for the lifting of the evacuation order' in Fukushima Prefecture as a part of part-time farming and job structure studies in the Tohoku region. We conducted interviews of evacuated farmers and the result indicated the unknown facts enumerated below. To be employees as full-time workers in factories is a standard for wives and husbands at the age of breadwinners. They have no engagement in their family farming besides their factory jobs; so that farming in the area is carried out by a few young full-time farmers and most wives and husbands at the age of retirement. The generational difference in job structure causes a sharp tendency of farm retirement at the restoring farming site. The wages of non-farming jobs in the area labor market started with a factory that moved from Yokohama in 1970, when area had abundant surplus labor; low wages appeared as the surplus labor dwindled. The process to build the hierarchy of non-farming wages from high to low was not considered in earlier studies about the rural labor market structure.
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