new challenges, particularly related to the operationalization of the revised definition of employment in labor force and multi-topic household surveys. Some of these are highlighted below.

# **_(1) Defining the intended use of output_**

The 19<sup>th</sup> ICLS resolution specifies that the separation between own-use production work and employment should be based on the “intended destination of output [...] established in reference to the specific goods produced or services provided, as self-declared” (ILO 2013b, par. 22). However, the term “intended destination of output” is somewhat ambiguous, as it lacks a formal definition and could potentially mean, among other things, the farmers’ desire to sell agricultural output, his/her expectation to sell, etc. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “intention” as “a thing intended, an aim or plan”. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Borchert 2006) states that intentions are closely linked to desires, particularly action-desires (i.e. the desire to do something) but also require an expectation that the desired action will, or at least may, come true. Based on this definition, operationalizing the revised ICLS standards requires farmers to form an expectation about the eventual use of their agricultural output at the time they work on their plots, which may be several months prior to harvest.<sup>9</sup> Social and cognitive psychological research shows that there can be significant cognitive bias in assessing probabilities and future outcomes (e.g. Tversky and Kahneman 1974; Haselton et al 2015). Moreover, self-reports of the intended use of output may correlate with specific personality traits (e.g. optimisms) and/or life aspirations, which in turn may differ systematically – all else being equal – between men and women, or across cultural and linguistic contexts. This raises concerns about using farmers’ self-declared intended use of output as a meaningful criterion to distinguish between employment and own-use production work.<sup>10</sup>

> 9 In the discussions leading up to the 19th ICLS, the actual destination of output was not considered a viable or desirable option to distinguish between employment and own-use production work. ILO (2013a) states that “the self-reported intended destination of the output serves to capture aspects related to the mode of organization of production”. It further argues that “alternative approaches [...] that attempt to quantify the proportion of the production destined to, or actually sold in the market in a set reference period” are not suggested “given their sensitivity to economic and environmental fluctuations.” As noted in the introduction to this paper, this approach is also consistent with earlier standards, particularly ISCO-08. However, based on the above definition, the intended destination of output cannot be entirely decoupled from its actual destination, as farmers need to form an expectation about the share of produce to be sold in order to report on the intended destination of output.

> 10 From a theoretical perspective, the distinction between production work intended for own use and production work intended for pay or profit is difficult to reconcile with a class of agricultural household models assuming separability between production and consumption decisions (Lopez 1986). These models postulate that agricultural households first maximize profits and then, subsequently, decide on a bundle of consumption goods by maximizing utility subject to a budget constraint (Janvry and Sadoulet 2003; Taylor and Adelman 2003). If production decisions are separable from consumption decisions, all farmers act as profit maximizing producers and there is essentially no ex-ante distinction between work intended for pay or profit and work intended for own use.

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