<mark>IHS-4 and approximately 3 acres in the Ghana and Malawi Agricultural Labor Surveys.</mark><sup>17</sup> <mark>Maize is an important crop in all samples, grown by between 50 percent (Nigeria GHS Panel Wave 3) and above 90 percent (Malawi Agricultural Labor Survey) of agricultural households. Between approximately 12 percent (Malawi Agricultural Labor Survey) and 29 percent (Nigeria GHS Panel Wave 3) of agricultural households grow beans, and about 50 percent (Ghana) to approximately 80 percent (Malawi Agricultural Labor Survey) own some livestock.</mark>

# **4 Employment of male and female farmers**

The new ICLS standards require combining data on a person’s activity with the intended use of the output produced in the activity, if the activity is farming or fishing, to determine employment status.<sup>18</sup> This section shows how employment levels of farmers change under the 19th ICLS standards – comparing activity-level and crop-level approaches to measure the intended destination of output.<sup>19</sup>

# **_Activity-level operationalization_**

Three of the four surveys described in section 3 – the Ghana and Malawi Agricultural Labor Surveys and the Nigeria GHS Panel Wave 3 – asked household members engaged in agriculture (farming, livestock rearing and/or fishing) whether the products obtained from their agricultural activity are mainly intended for sale or for family use. This question was asked at the beginning and at the end of the growing season for the main local crop, which in the three countries is maize.<sup>20</sup> Table 1 shows a large variation in the intended use of farmers’ output, both across countries and over time.<sup>21</sup> In Ghana, 75 percent of farmers report producing only or mainly for sale at the start of the season,

> 17 There is a surprisingly large difference in the average size of landholdings between the Malawi Agricultural Labor Survey and the Malawi IHS-4. Multiple factors may explain this – including the different levels of regional coverage (see Table A1), differences in question phrasing, slight differences in the timing of data collection, etc. In addition, unlike the IHS-4, which visited households only once, the Malawi Agricultural Labor Survey interviewed households repeatedly over the course of the season (i.e. all households were administered a pre-planting and end-of-season survey and a sub-sample of households received additional weekly interviews). As discussed in Gaddis et al, forthcoming, repeated interviews lead to increased capture of marginal plots and hence increase total measured land holdings at the household level.

> 18 Farming here includes animal rearing. In theory, the distinction between own-use production work and employment can also arise in other sectors, such as hunting, gathering, food preservation, etc. However, in developing countries, mixed production (for both own use and profit) is most common in agriculture, and employment estimates are most sensitive to farmers’ classification as employed or in own-use production work.

> 19 In all the analysis in this paper, we only report on individuals aged 15 years and above.

> 20 The start-of-season and end-of-season surveys were fielded, approximately, six to nine months apart (see Table A1).

> 21 In Malawi and Nigeria, the estimates refer to all individuals (15+) who had worked at least one hour on the family farm during the reference period (based on the surveys’ labor modules). In Ghana, the estimates refer to all individuals (15+) who stated that their _main occupation_ was working in agriculture (based on the question in the household member characteristics module). We obtain very similar results for Ghana if we consider individuals who had worked at least one hour on the family farm during the reference period (based on the labor module), but this information is only available for the post-harvest survey.

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