Introduction

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The number of Canadian census farm operators and those who report off-farm work are trending in opposite directions. Between 1991 and 2006 the number of census farm operators fell 16%, from 390,870 to 327,055. Over the same period, the number of operators reporting off-farm work rose approximately 9%, from 145,005 to 158,255 (Statistics Canada 2002a; Statistics Canada 2007b). Multiple job-holding by farm households has become a common pattern across rural Canada (Fuller and Bollman 1992), with the service sector being the main source of employment for rural residents (Bollman et al. 1992).

The size of the farm business is likely to be a major variable in determining off-farm labour participation. Smaller census farms are less likely to provide sufficient and stable income for the household and are more likely to be associated with rural lifestyle choices in which farming becomes a secondary economic activity for the household. Indeed, national statistics from the Census of Agriculture show a striking difference in off-farm labour participation by size of farm business (Statistics Canada 2002a). In 2001 and 2006, over 60% of the individuals operating very small operations (gross revenues below $10,000) were employed off their holding (Figure 1).

Figure 1  Operators associated with larger census farms are less likely to combine farm and off-farm work, Canada, 2000 and 2005

In practice, some operators of very small agricultural holdings run their farm as a hobby and as such might not claim to be "employed" on their holding.  In this case, their so-called "off-farm" job would probably be their only employment. Note that for all individuals in Canada over 15 years of age, about two-thirds are employed. Thus, the share of operators of very small holdings who report (off-farm) employment is similar to the share of all Canadians with employment. In contrast, 25% of the operators of larger census farms, those with gross revenues over $250,000, were employed off-farm in 2006 (this was 19% in 2001).

Although farm size seems to be a major factor associated with the decision to work off-farm, other factors should also be considered. In this bulletin, the determinants of off-farm work decisions for Canadian census farm operators are assessed. To this end, micro-level data from the 2001 Census of Agriculture is combined with community level data from the 2001 Census of Population¹ (Box 2). Compared with previous research on off-farm employment, this study enhances the understanding of off-farm labour allocation by explicitly investigating the differential impacts of the various factors for households associated with a "smaller" and a "larger" census farm (Box 1). The regional dimension of the labour market is accounted for, and the influence of community, regional and urban factors in the decision to work off-farm are explored (Box 1 and Box 2).

This bulletin is a summary of a larger working paper which contains more details on the theoretical framework, data and variable selection, estimation procedure, probability estimates and some mapping and simulation analysis (Alasia et al. 2007).

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Note

1. The Agriculture-Population Linkage database for 2006 was released in December, 2008 and was not available for the analysis reported in this bulletin.