Abstract
One of the major challenges that the rural economy of Bangladesh faces is to generate productive
employment for the growing labour force. In Bangladesh, each year nearly one million people are
added to the labour force, most of them reside in rural areas. The gap between the number of new
rural workers and the number of new jobs in agriculture is growing in Bangladesh. Agricultural
advances alone will not be able to meet the rural employment challenge. The purpose of the study
was to develop understanding of the determinant, farm to non-farm backward and forward
employment linkages, pattern of employment, income and expenditure of rural landless non-farm
households and recommend policy to promote employment in Bangladesh. The study was conducted
in three villages of Pirganj Sadar Upazila of Thakurgaon district giving emphasis on poverty
incidence and intensity offarm related non-farm activities. A sample of 280 household was selected
for the study. The study used both primary and secondary data and applied descriptive and
statistical analysis. About 55% of the households had no cultivable land and 40% members were
earning members. Fifty seven percent workers were literate. Out of 515 members 206 were nonfarm workers. As regards rural non-farm employment typology, about 29% of the earning members
were sales workers, 19% production workers, 17% professional, 13% transport workers, 13%
labourers/helpers, 5% clerical and related workers. Results from the logit model showed that out of
ten variables, 6 were significant at 1% level of significance. Marginal effect of household skills was
0.98, which was the highest, meaning that if the HH acquired skills by way of training, doinglearning process and education, the probability to participate in non-farm employment increased by
98 percent. The farm to non-farm backward, forward and total employment linkage both for Aman
and Boro rice were 0.16, 0.41 and 0.58 respectively, which meant that for producing, processing
and marketing of Aman and Boro rice per hectare, total of 16, 41 and 58 maydays of backward,
forward and total employment were created in non-farm sector against 100 maydays of employment
in farm sector. Incase of consumption linkages, positive relation was found between consumption
and income. But for farm to non-farm income/return/wage rate, the relationship was found inverse.
Monthwise and seasonwise, farm earning members' employment, income, and expenditure and wage
rates were always less than those for the non-farm earning members. Lean-1 period i.e. the months
of August, September and October month was the lowest employment and income opportunities for
the farm wage labour. From the study it was found that farm employment rose during peak seasons
i.e. transplanting and harvesting of Aman and Boro rice but fell in lean seasons. Non-farm
employment and income also rose just before, during or after harvesting of Aman and Boro rice.
There is a positive relation between farm and non-farm employments. Month and season wise
income and expenditure followed the same pattern of employment. The income-expenditure gap was
Tk. 1720 on an average considering non-food expenditure without loan installment and was Tk. 240
with loan installment. The lessons learnt is that the poor landless rural non-farm households can
only bear their food, non-food expenditure and loan installments from their rural non-farm
employment and income. Lack of skill was considered as a main constraint. For stimulating rural non-farm sector, the researcher suggests the set of recommendations: polices are needed to (i)
invest in human capital development through making provision of skill development training in
different trades for the poor and unemployed person and set-up training centre in the premises of
rural town and bazaars or nearby well connected locations (ii) promote key small scale rural industries: mainly on backward industries like agricultural machinery spare-parts manufacturing workshop/industries including leathe machine, handloom/powerloom industries and forward linkage industries like husking mill, wheat, maize, mango and litchi processing, milk processing and mini
garments industries (iii) provide financial support: mainly seasonal loan for workers engaged in different micro enterprises business like tailors, carpenters, mason, blacksmith and others on easy
terms and conditions (iv) develop non-crop enterprises like commercial poultry and dairy farm in
the rural areas (v) invest in rural roads, electricity, transport and other ancillary facilities for agri- business and overall economic development (vi) set-up institution to monitor non-farm sector development and (viii) link agriculture with rural non-farm sector.