Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-nmvwc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-06T08:09:10.372Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

US farm workers: What drives their job retention and work time allocation decisions?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Tianyuan Luo
Affiliation:
University of Georgia, USA
Cesar L Escalante*
Affiliation:
University of Georgia, USA
*
Cesar L Escalante, Agricultural & Applied Economics, University of Georgia, 313 E Conner Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA. Email: cescalan@uga.edu

Abstract

This article investigates the time allocation choices of US workers between farm work and other job alternatives. Results indicate that green card farm workers tend to allocate fewer workweeks to farm employment than citizens and undocumented workers, in favour of better opportunities in the non-farm sector. There is evidence of an assimilation effect, whereby undocumented workers also tend to re-allocate their time from farm to non-farm employment as their residence tenure increases, even though they experience constrained mobility and visibility during periods of strict immigration control. In the context of employers’ violations of the existing labour laws that currently protect even the rights of undocumented workers, such turnover decisions seem justified. The findings raise concerns about whether any governmental effort to legalise the immigration status of such workers would reduce farm job turnover rates and increase farm employment retention, so long as labour standards are not enforced. Moreover, external economic shocks could more easily induce citizen and green card farm workers to abandon farm employment, whereas undocumented workers tend to remain in their farm jobs during such difficult times.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acquaye, AK, Alston, JM, Pardey, PG (2003) Post-war productivity patterns in U.S. agriculture: influences of aggregation procedures in a state-level analysis. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 85(1): 5980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adsera, A, Chiswick, BR (2007) Are there gender and country of origin differences in immigrant labor market outcomes across European destinations? Journal of Population Economics 20(3): 495526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahearn, MC, El-Osta, H, Mishra, AK (2013) Considerations in Work choices of US farm households: the role of health insurance. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics 38(1): 1933.Google Scholar
Ahituv, A, Kimhi, A (2006) Simultaneous estimation of work choices and the level of farm activity using panel data. European Review of Agricultural Economics 33(1): 4971.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Atamanov, A, Van den Berg, M (2012) Participation and returns in rural nonfarm activities: evidence from the Kyrgyz Republic. Agricultural Economics. 43(4): 459471.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bjørnsen, HM, Biørn, E (2010) Interrelated labor decisions of farm couples: a censored response analysis of off-farm work. Agricultural Economics 41(6): 595610.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bray, I (2016) Legal rights of undocumented immigrants. Available at: http://immigration.lawyers.com/general-immigration/legal-rights-of-illegal-immigrants.html (accessed 12 March 2017).Google Scholar
Bump, P (2015) Where America’s undocumented immigrants work. The Washington Post, 27 March. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/03/27/where-americas-undocumented-immigrants-work/ (accessed 13 January 2017).Google Scholar
Calvin, L, Martin, P (2010) The U.S. produce industry and labor: Facing the future in a global economy. Economic research report no. 106. Washington, DC: Economic Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Available at: https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/err106/8069_err106.pdf (accessed 12 March 2017).Google Scholar
Contreras, RL (2015) Yes, illegal aliens have constitutional rights. The Hill. Available at: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/immigration/255281-yes-illegal-aliens-have-constitutional-rights (accessed 13 January 2017).Google Scholar
Council of Economic Advisers (2013) Economic Report of the President. Washington, DC: Council of Economic Advisers. Available at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ERP-2013/content-detail.html (accessed 16 November 2015).Google Scholar
De Janvry, A, Sadoulet, E (2001) Income strategies among rural households in Mexico: the role of off-farm activities. World Development 29(3): 467480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
El-Osta, HS, Mishra, AK, Ahearn, MC (2004) Labor supply by farm operators under ‘decoupled’ farm program payments. Review of Economics of the Household 2(4): 367385.Google Scholar
Emerson, RD (2007) Agricultural labor markets and immigration. Choices 22(1): 5766.Google Scholar
Escalante, CL, Perkins, SL, Santos, FI (2011) When the seasonal foreign farm workers are gone. Journal of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers 74(1): 8396.Google Scholar
Escalante, CL, Wu, Y, Li, X (2016) ‘Organic farms’ seasonal farm labor sourcing strategies in the pre-‘Arizona’ mode of immigration control. Applied Economics Letters 23(5): 341346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, RJ (2012) Ten years after Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. V. NLRB: the power of a labor law symbol. Scholarly works paper 778. Available at: http://scholars.law.unlv.edu/facpub/778 (accessed 19 March 2017).Google Scholar
Goodwin, BK, Mishra, AK (2004) Farming efficiency and the determinants of multiple job holding by farm operators. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 86(3): 722729.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamermesh, DS, Trejo, SJ (2013) How do immigrants spend their time? The process of assimilation. Journal of Population Economics 26(2): 507530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hausman, JA, Leonard, GK (1997) Superstars in the National Basketball Association: economic value and policy. Journal of Labor Economics 15(4): 586624.Google Scholar
Kandel, W (2008) Profile of hired farmworkers: a 2008 update. Economic research report no. 60. Washington, DC: Economic Research Service. U.S. Department of Agriculture.Google Scholar
Lien, G, Kumbhakar, SC, Hardaker, JB (2010) Determinants of off-farm work and its effects on farm performance: the case of Norwegian grain farmers. Agricultural Economics 41(6): 577586.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKissick, JC, Kane, SP (2011) An Evaluation of Direct and Indirect Economic Losses Incurred by Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Producers in Spring 2011. Athens, GA: Center for Agribusiness & Economic Development, University of Georgia.Google Scholar
Martin, P (2007) Farm labor shortages: how real? what response? Working paper, Center for Immigration Studies, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Martin, P (2016) Immigration and farm labor: challenges and opportunities. AgBioForum 18(3): 252258.Google Scholar
Mishra, A, El-Osta, H (2016) Determinants of decisions to enter the U.S. farming sector. Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics 48(1): 7398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullahy, J (2015) Multivariate fractional regression estimation of econometric share models. Journal of Econometric Methods 4(1): 71100.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Papke, LE, Wooldridge, JM (1996) Econometric methods for fractional response variables with an application to 401 (k) plan participation rates. Journal of Applied Econometrics 11(6): 619632.3.0.CO;2-1>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Passel, JS (2015) Share of Unauthorized Immigrant Workers in Production, Construction Jobs Fall Since 2007. Washington, DC: Hispanic Trends, Pew Research Center.Google Scholar
Pham, H, Van, PH (2010) Economic impact of local immigration regulation: an empirical analysis. Immigration and Nationality Law Review 31: 687720.Google Scholar
Preston, J (2007) Short on labor, farmers in US shift to Mexico. The New York Times, 5 September. Available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/05/us/05export.html?pagewanted=all (accessed 5 October 2007).Google Scholar
Ruark, EA, Moinuddin, A (2011) Illegal Immigration and Agribusiness: The Effect on the Agriculture Industry of Converting to a Legal Workforce. Washington, DC: Federation for American Immigration Reform.Google Scholar
Serra, T, Goodwin, BK, Featherstone, AM (2005) Agricultural policy reform and off-farm labor decisions. Journal of Agricultural Economics 56(2): 271285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, R, Sugimori, A (2015) Undocumented Workers: Preserving Rights and Remedies after Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB. New York: National Employment Law Project. Available at: www.nelp.org/content/uploads/2015/03/wlghoff040303.pdf (accessed 1 March 2017).Google Scholar
Vargas, AJ (2016) Assimilation effects beyond the labor market: time allocations of Mexican immigrants to the US. Review of Economics of the Household 14(3): 625668.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wells, J (2012) California farm labor shortage ‘worst it’s been ever’. CNBC (Consumer News and Business Channel), 20 August. Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/48725145 (accessed 4 September 2015).Google Scholar
Wozniacka, G (2013) Farmers face labor shortages as workers find other jobs. Moscow-Pullman Daily News, 27 September. Available at: http://dnews.com/news_ap/farmers-face-labor-shortages-as-workers-find-other-jobs/article_35a6e3a9–8d05–5332-acab-982590e27be4.html (accessed 16 November 2015).Google Scholar
Yunez-Naude, A, Taylor, JE (2001) The determinants of nonfarm activities and incomes of rural households in Mexico, with emphasis on education. World Development 29(3): 561572.CrossRefGoogle Scholar