Do Off-farm Work and Remittances affect Food Consumption Patterns? Evidence from Albania
2017
Seidu, Ayuba | Onel, Gulcan | Moss, Charles B. | Seale, James L.
Full-time working within agriculture is now relatively uncommon; many farm households are stillactive in the off-farm labor markets, in and outside the local economy. This paper examines theimpact of a portfolio of off-farm incomes on food consumption patterns using Working-Leserframework, under two-stage budgeting, to isolate the off-farm income effect from the pureexpenditure elasticities. This is analyzed for rural farm households in transitional Albania. Theresults indicate that food at home consumption has a positive and inelastic association with offfarmwage income, whereas, the response food away from home consumption is positive andhighly elastic. Remittances generate the opposite effect on food consumption both at home andaway from home, leading to reduction of food consumption. A disaggregated analysis reveals thatoff-farm wage income increases households’ consumption of cereal-based foods at home; we findthe opposite and significant effect for remittances. These findings should be of interest topolicymakers in Albania, especially in designing poverty and nutrition programs.
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