A Study on Determinants of Participation in Rural Nonfarm Employment

The present research has been conducted through field surveys in Rural Tamil Nadu to perceive the factors influencing the rural workers’ participation in the nonfarm activities. A total of 240 workers comprising 143 wage employment and 97 self employment workers were taken in the study from the districts of Dindigul, Karur and Trichy. The nonfarm self employment workers were found to earn more than nonfarm wage employment workers. The empirical evidence from Multinomial result exposed that engaging in nonfarm employment was mostly by “push” factors, but less by “pull” factors at work. The result of Multinomial Logit Model also showed that there was difference in the effect of explanatory variables on participation of households in nonfarm wage and self employment activities. The explanatory variables such as age, educational status, community, family size did not emerge as significant factors. However the variables such as marital status, distance of travel, land holding, borrowing and livestock are the determinant factors of rural nonfarm (RNF) employment.