Labor allocation pattern: among landless workers household in favorable and unfavorable rice production environments [Philippines].

The degree of involvement of landless workers on different income earning activities and the factors which influence it is the main focus of the study. Likewise, the study attempted to describe the employment, wages and living condition of the landless household in favorable and unfavorable production environments. Favorable villages are with full irrigation, higher adaption of modern rice technology and higher cropping intensity as compared with the unfavorable villages. These characteristics increased the demand for hired labor, which attracted migration of landless workers from unfavorable to the favorable areas. The characteristics of the landless workers differed across production environments. Those in the unfavorable areas of Gabaldon [Nueva Ecija, Philippines] and Signe [Iloilo, Philippines] are relatively worse-off than those in the favorable areas. They have lower income, lower material welfare and lower educational standards. They have lower income because they do not have the skills and capital to engage in more renumerative jobs. In addition, duration of employment is shorter because of lower cropping intensity and because non-agricultural activities is often limited except for some casual and low paying jobs such as transportation, petty buy and sell and domestic work. In Rizal, Iloilo, Philippines, although it is an unfavorable area, landless workers have the highest income because they are more educated, hence most were employed in the non-rice sector in nearby city of Iloilo. The participation of male and female workers to wage labor in rice and non-agricultural activities were analyzed using the framework of the New Household Economics. Regression estimates showed that workers attribute such as number of children and their age structure were found significant in explaining variations in the number of hours worked in income-earning activities. It was also confirmed that modern rice technology and the seasonality characteristics of rice production strongly determined labor allocated as indicated by high coefficients for village and season dummies for male and female members of landless households, respectively.