نقش كشاورزي در تامين اشتغال و كاهش بيكاري

The Role of Agricultur in Generating Employment

The role of labor force in agricultural sector is reducing while its productivity is increasing. The reduction of agricultural employment is Iran from 56 percent in 1335 (1956/1957) to 23 percent in 1375 (1996/1997) indicaires this fact. The unemployment crisis in recent decades (1370-1379), problematized the ability of this sector generating employment. To determine agricultural sectorʹs decreasing unemployment, one needs to estimate demand for labor force in this sector. Production theory trends to used to estimate demand models, which is based on derived demand functions, and empirical works. In this paper empirical models of labor force are used, with labor being a function of investment, value added and acreage. To determine integration order of the variable, we use unit root tests. and Error correction model is also utilized to perform policy analysis. Results show that employment elasticity with respect to acreage is more important than that of investement or value added. Therefore, in current situation of Iranian agricultural sector, more efforts to increase acreage, is a way of enhancing the importantance of agricultural employment.