A ‘RETURNS TO LABOUR’ THEORY OF PEASANT

HOUSEHOLD ORGANISATION*

ROBERT WADE

Institute of Dmhpment Studies, Sussex University

The impact of population pressure on social organisation, long neglected by anthropologists, has recently been the subject of a number of studies. For example, Harner’s study (1970) shows strong corre- lations between population pressure on the one hand, and descent rules, stratification, and political centralisation, on the other, in a sample of over 1,OOO societies. Goldschmidt and Kunkel’s (1971) identifies a small number of ecological factors, notably land scarcity, as determinants of inheritance and residence patterns in a sample of forty-six peasant communities. A paper by Dumond (1972) traces the effects of population growth on stratification and political central- isation at a general theoretical level.

W e also have a growing number of case studies which examine the effects of population growth in specific communities. Stirling’s account of village life in Turkey before the Republic is especially enlightening, and will serve as an introduction to the argument of this paper: ‘As sons reached maturity the household was able to expand its land holding. This would make possible, and require, an increasc in its animal population as well. Thus the wealth controlled by the head increased, the surpluses produced by each constituent element were pooled in his hands, and the whole unit benefited by efficiency in production. . . Yet on his death, each son would inherit approximately only as much land as he himself had been ploughing . . . Each young household head would depend on his procreative prowess, skill, hard work and luck to build for himself a position of prominence in his later years’ (1965: 136).

This situation, Stirling argues, is stable as long as population remains constant. Once population begins to expand (as it did in Turkey after

24 Robert Wade

the establishment of the Republic), land fills up, and there arises the problem of supporting a growing family on a fixed land base: ‘In the new situation, sons are still as much desired as ever. They are still a source of prestige, religious as well as secular; they form an armed guard for the defence of the household, and they enable a father to take his ease. Even in the past sons who could not be absorbed as extra labour on the household lands could increase household income as labourers, servants, shepherds or migrants. But when the household land does not expand in proportion to the male labour force, fission leaves each son with less land than he is capable of working . . . in two or three generations, many households will be reduced to poverty’

The implicit idea is that for stability, the maniland ratio can move only within certain limits; beyond these limits changes in the size and Composition of households will occur. The present paper draws out the implications of this point for peasant household organisation.

Clearly, the size and kinship composition of any domestic group is the result of many diverse influences. In one way or another these bear on the length of the ‘developmental cycle’, the cycle over which consolidation and division of the unit takes place with birth, death and marriage2; depending on how long or short it is the domestic group’s size will be large or small and its kinship structure more or less extended. In other words, a large proportion of the factors which affect household size and Composition are subsumed in a theory of the developmental cycle. A whole range of demographic variables affect the cycle, such as sex ratios, fertility, age of marriage and first child, and especially life expectancy. A number of sociological and economic conditions affect it by influencing the decision of actual or potential members to stay, join or leave: for example, norms of inheritance, residence and age at marriage, perceived opportunities for obtaining income outside the household, and the authority of the family head.

This paper outlines a formal model in terms of which s w of these influences can be brought together. The size and composition of a household are treated as the result of two sets of influences: the opportunities facing actual and potential members; and the goals which these people seek. It is assumed that decisions to stay, join or leave a household are largely based on a comparison of the consumption possibilities in the household compared to consumption possibilities elsewhere. The focus is on how the size and composition of a farm household may adjust to a change in the land to which it has access; and conversely, on how its land may be adjusted to an autonomous change

(1965: 140-1).

A “Return to Labour” Theory of Peasant HouseboM Organisation 25

in its size and composition. One might expect that as land area changes, total labour inputs would change in the same direction, and that changes in labour inputs would be associated with changes in house- hold size and extension. This is in fact what happened to households in a land reform area of Central Italy, for which the model was first formulated.3 There, the reform of the early 1950s increused the land available to one category of cultivators and decreased the land available to another; in the intervening years, the size and extension of the latter has declined considerably, while the size of those households which got more land has declined much less and the degree of extension has increased. Today, when both categories have about the same amount of land there is no significant difference in size and composition between them.4 But what happened to those households is only one of several possible kinds of adjustment to a change in land, and the aim of the paper is to spell out what assumptions have to be made before this kind of adjustment can be predicted as a logical consequence of a land change (or a change in land predicted as the result of a given change in household size). A deductive model derived from ‘neo-classical’ microeconomics is convenient for this purpose, for the model invites systematic examination of the range of possibilities - something to which the empirical generalisations of Harner, Goldschmidt and Kun- kel, Stirling and others are less conductive. With the more general framework described here, accounts of peasant household organisation, whether in Central Italy, Turkey or anywhere else may be more readily compared.3

A ‘RETURNS TO LABOUR’ THEORY

Let us begin with the simplest case and proceed from there to more complex and realistic cases. Initially, we shall use a very restrictive set of assumptions - sufficiently restrictive so that adjustments in land and/ or labour are the only possible means of adjustment. Subsequently some of these restrictions will be discarded, with the object of exploring the consequences of doing so for household size and structure.

In the simplest case, then: 1. Household members aim at a level of consumption per head at least

equal to that available from alternative uses of time off the farm.6 2. The amount added to the total production of the household by

successive units of labour eventually declines.

26 Robert Wade

3. The ratio of producer members to consumer members is fixed. 4. There are no significant skill differences between producers. 5 . There is no seasonal labour on or off the farm. 6. The proportion of production which is saved is constant. 7. The amount of work per worker is fixed. 8. Capital, technology, intensity of land use, and the product mix

The basic links of the theory are stated in the first two assumptions: the tendency for household members to set their ‘target’ consumption levels in relation to the levels obtainable from the alternative employ- ments outside the household which they perceive as open to them- selves; and the tendency for the marginal returns to labour applied to a fixed amount of land (holding the factors stated in 8 constant) to decline eventually. The latter is a technological relationship often known in economics as the law (or hypothesis) of diminishing returns.’ The former is a statement about goals; though it is descriptively false (in the sense of being incomplete), it is made because, first, con- sumption is likely to be an important goal, even if one among several, and second, because by assuming it is the only goal, a simple deductive link can be made between changes in resources and changes in the household. When put together, these two assumptions - one techno- logical, the other to do with objectives - suggest that imbalances are likely to occur between a household’s land base and the number of persons to be maintained, where imbalances are defined as differences between the average returns from household economic activity and the average returns from alternative uses of time. The result - given assumptions 5-8 - is permanent immigration or out-migration, depending on whether average returns are higher or lower than elsew- here. ‘Elsewhere’ includes, of course, cities and towns; in this way, what happens in any one household is seen to depend on both the local ecological context (the relations between technology and environ- ment) and the external context (alternatives beyond the household, within and outside the locality).

The third assumption is made so that the household can be treated as a homogenous unit, without considering the distribution mechanism within it. The remaining assumptions state the conditions in which change in land area is translated into a change in household size via a change in labour inputs (and vice versa). Assumption 4 rules out the substitution of skills for labour power. Assumption 5 implies that a person cannot continue to be a member of a household while not depending on household land; to take up alternative work he must

remain constant.

A “Returns to Labour” Tbeoty of Peasant HousehoM Organisation 27

leave it. Thus, a situation in which household land is too small but all members remain, drawing their consumption partly from their own land and partly from wages, is ruled out. The sixth, seventh and eighth assumptions imply that to alter consumption levels there must either be a change in the amount of land or a change in labour inputs.

Starting from this initial extremely simple situation, we can go on to more interesting c a m by removing some of the limiting assumptions and seeing what effect their removal has. To do so it helps to show the relationships diagrammatically. In Figure 1, the AP curve shows the average product of labour at different levels of labour units, with a fixed amount of land. (The shape of the curve can be taken as an average over

Figure 1. Land - labour

A . immiorotion I I 4

I I I I

- i I

1 I

I I I I I F

LABOUR INPUTS(L1

L l L2 L 3 - product rclationships: Fixed Land

several seasons, to offset the influence of seasonal variations in agricul- ture.) At first, the productivity of labour may increase with successive additions because of the advantages of team work in agriculture, but eventually productivity declines as more labour is added to fixed land; accordingly, the AP curve first rises and then falls. The line W represents the level of remuneration in the most profitable alternative use of time open to persons from the household; in other words, it shows the ‘opportunity cost’ to a household member of remaining a member.* A level of labour inputs such as L,, which gives an average product (AP,) less than the level of remuneration in alternatives, will not be an equilibrium level: labour inputs are ‘too large’, which by

28 Robert Wade

assumptions 5 and 6 means that household size is ‘too large’ in relation to its land. If land is fixed, some members of the household could get higher returns to their labour by leaving the household and taking up alternative work.

In the opposite ‘too small’ case, when the full employment level of labour inputs from the household gives a level of L, in Fig. 1, the situation is more complicated. Prospective newcomers to a household have a consumption incentive to join because the level of average returns is higher than in the alternatives open to them. A spouse of one of the members, for example, has an incentive to move into the household.9 But with fixed land, the effect of allowing additional people to share the productive asset will eventually be to lower the average product available to members. Existing members may not have a simple consumption incentive to allow others to join, (depending on whether the household is at the rising or falling position of its AP curve), and the situation may need another determinant for equili- b ’ rium.

It is not hard to think of plausible objectives in terms of which existing members of the household would want to include additional persons up to a certain limit, even at the cost of reductions in their consumption level. A large household is less likely to have insufficient labour at critical times of the year for meeting unexpectedly large labour requirements (recall that the AP curve is to be understood as an average of several seasons); in this and other ways a large household may provide better consumption insurance for its members. In other words, there may be an insurance value in having more labour available within the household than the graph of average expected outcomes indicates. A large household may also enable older people to have lighter work loads and provide them with greater security. Where a particular type of work is seen as dirty or degrading non-kinsmen may be added to the household as semi-permanent residents and given responsibility for it. The power and prestige of the household head may depend, as in Stirling’s Turkish villages, on the number of persons in the household, particularly the number of adult sons, for sons con- stitute the core of a political and military following. Where the household is only slightly connected to a regional market system or where the utility of money is low,’O there may be a consumption demand ceiling, such that beyond a certain level additional con- sumption is not highly valued. The phenomenon of a per capita consumption ceiling makes it more likely that households smaller than the equilibrium site will become larger: low valued additional product

A “Returns to Labour” Theory of Peasant Household Organisation 29

per person will be readily given up to obtain more of the advantages of a large household.

In short, two sets of objectives may have to be taken into account when dealing with the case where the household is ‘too small’, those of potential newcomers and those of existing members. The tendency towards an increase in size (when AP is greater than W in Fig. 1) can be deducted from a simple consumption objective in the case ofpotential members but further considerations need to be introduced for existing residents.

Adjustments to a disequilibrium combination of land and labour may also come about through changes in the quantity of land. If the household is ‘too large’ access to more land may be possible by renting or purchasing, for example. This adjustment is shown in Figure 2 as a shift outwards of the average product curve AP’ to Ap”, at which a household with a labour force providing L, units of labour would be in equilibrium. Likewise a household which is ‘too small’ might reduce its land, perhaps by leasing it to a tenant or selling it.

I I I

I 1 Lz LABOUR Figure 2. Land - labour - product relationships: incrase in land.

The same reasoning applies when a household experiences an auto- nomous change in the amount of land to which it has access. If a household capable of sustaining L, level of labour inputs (Fig. 2) gets additional land, represented by a shift from AP’ to AP”, (suppose the cost is negligible, as might be the case with inherited land or reform land), one would expect labour inputs to increase from L, to L,, which, by assumption means that household size will increase as members

INPUTS (L)

30 Robert Wade

remain in the household after marriage and as kinsmen and others are recruited (particularly if the extra crops or animals can be marketed or used directly to retain a following).

In short, adjustments can be made in both variables, labour force and land: a household with a large labour force and a small farm has an incentive to get access to more land or reduce its members, and a small household with a large amount of available land has an incentive to increase its labour force or reduce its land.

The next step relates household size to kinship extension. It has been argued that the larger the amount of household land the more labour inputs can be applied without reducing the returns to labour below returns in alternative work. Children at marriage may want to bring their spouses to live in the household and parents may have a variety of reasons for encouraging them. It may be cheaper to recruit kin than to hire labourers who live semipermanently with the household, especially if (a) the land base of the household is secure, (b) kinsmen are share partners after the harvest rather than receivers of a fixed contractual wage, and (c) relationships of trust are more easily maintained between kinsmen than between nonkin. Partly for these reasons, then, big households will tknd to be composed of kinsmen (rather than of a nuclear family plus unrelated persons).

The theory predicts that the decision to join the husband’s or wife’s parental household (in the case of unilocal residence), depends on the effect of an additional person on average product in both households. The couple will live where the decline is least, which gives rise to an ambilocal residence pattern. But ambilocal residence is rarely reported to occur outside South-East Asia,” and one looks for further consider- ations which may modify the prediction of the model. The first of these is the sexual division of labour; where one or other of the sexes does most of the work in subsistence activities, especially where team work and detailed local knowledge is advantageous, the residence rule will tend to localise that sex. In the typical peasant case males perform most work on the farm, and one therefore anticipates a pattern of patrilocal residence. The second point relates to inheritance: it is reasonable to suppose that what matters in a decision to join the husband’s or wife’s household is not only the immediate effect on consumption, but also anticipated changes in assets, based perhaps on inheritance norms. For example, where preferred inheritance is patrilineal impartible (one son inherits all the land), a newly married son will have less incentive to move into his father’s household if he does not expect to be the one to inherit, and the type of household structure likely to be found is

A “Return to L.abour” Theoty of Peasant Household Organisation 3 1

therefore the patrilocal stem family (a single son continues to reside in his paternal household after marriage). Similarly, with patrilineal part- ible inheritance (all sons share in the inheritance of land) one expects to find patrilocal joint households (all sons continue to reside in the paternal household after marriage). Notice that within the framcwork of the ‘returns to labour’ theory both predictions depend on assumptions about remuneration in alternatives: the first assumes that alternative work is a remunerative as the non-inheriting sons can expect if they continue to reside in the household; the second assumes that alternative remuneration is lower (and/or less secure) than the sons can expect by remaining in the household.

If changes in techniques, capital stock, land intensity and product mix are permitted (cf. assumption 8 ) the relationship between house- hold size and land is altered, since these provide alternatives to adjust- ments in labour and land. If the household is ‘too small’ (and land is fixed) there are incentives for a lengthening of fallow periods, a switch to extensive land-using activities (from vines to wheat or from wheat to livestock grazing), and for labour-saving innovations (which in the context of Central Italian farming might include piped water into stables, carting improvements, and these days, electric fences and trac- tors). If the household is ‘too large’ there are incentives for land-augmen- ting changes in technology (improved fertilisers and seeds, tractors), decrease in fallow periods,I2 and a switch to crops with high returns per acre (tree-crops and vegetables). These induced changes are shown diagrammatically as shifts outwards of the AP curve independently of increases in land. If an autonomous increase in land occurs, accompanied by autonomus labour-saving changes in technology, the level of labour inputs will increase by less than would have occurred without the technological change. Similarly, if an autonomous decrcax in land is accompanied by au tonomous labour-saving technological change one expects a larger decline in labour inputs than without the change in techniques. If at the same time returns in alternative work (e.g. urban wage employment) increase one can say little more than that house- holds whose land base increases will decline in size by less than those whose land is reduced.

The theory, then, can allow for both autonomous and induced changes in capital and technology, and for autonomous changes in the opportunity cost of labour.

The foregoing suggests four hypotheses: 1. The greater the amount of land available to the household the larger

the household will be, other things (such as age structure, techno-

32 Robert W& logy, cropping pattern, alternative employment opportunities) remaining constant.

2. If investment and labour-saving technological change occur, those households which experience an increase in land will decline less than those which experience a decrease, other things remaining constant.

3. The larger the household the greater the degree of kinship extension in it, other things remaining constant.

4. Patrilineal impartible inheritance will be associated with a patrilocal stem household structure, patrilineal partible inheritance with a patrilocal joint household type, subject to the condition in the impartible case that alternative work is as remunerative as non-in- heriting sons can expect if they continue to live in the household, and in the partible case, that alternative work is less remunerative than sons can expect by remaining in the household.

OTHER INFLUENCES

Many other influences operate on household size and composition in addition to those so far considered. 1. The likely kind of adjustments to imbalances are limited by the

organisation of land and the cost of alternative adjustments. The ease with which the land available to the household can be altered depends on such factors as the market for purchasing and leasing (including among kin”), the length and security of contracts, and inheritance practices. An increase in available land will have different effects on household organisation depending on how secure is the household’s access and on the quality of land. Where land cannot be readily altered the sizeof household (and perhaps consumptionlevels) may make the adjustment, at least in the short run. Where more land is available at little cost most of the adjustment may be made with land (as in Stirling’s Turkish villages before population began to grow). Moreover in some peasant societies land is treated as much more than a productive asset; it is a major basis for an individual’s and a family’s identity and prestige and is to some extent insulated from calculations of material gains and losses (the important ques- tion being, of course, how insulated).” People’s ‘own farm’ preference may be quite high, even apart from the (often consider- able) costs of travelling to distant workplaces.

2. The likely labour force adjustments after a change in land size depend on the age composition of the household, on whether

A “Return to Labour” Theory of Peasant Household Organisation 33

members can be divided into constituent units (e.g. nuclear families) capable of forming independent households (which varies with stage of the developmental cycle), and on the strength of residence norms at marriage.

3. Apart from land and manpower, work animals may well be a crucial constraint. A household which is ‘too large’ may not be able to persist unchanged even if it can get access to more land, if it cannot also obtain animal power (or cannot change its cropping pattern to one requiring less animal power).

4. The cost of capital accumulation influences the likelihood of the ‘capital accumulation - technological change’ type of adjustment. The cost will be different depending on whether it is financed out of household savings, by loans from local money lenders or from commercial banks, by migrants’ remittances, and so on.

5 . Urban industrial growth affects rural households by altering the opportunities facing their members and the goals they seek. Opportunities expand for making adjustments with capital and technology instead of land and labour -more so for rich farmers than for poor; in particular, mechanisation of labour-intensive oper- ations may be profitable, even when labour is abundant, by releasing land formerly used to maintain work animals for human food production, with the consequence of reducing the manpower ad- vantage of large households.” Population pressure is likely to in- crease as mortality falls and birth rates remain constant, which causes a restriction of opportunities within the household, especially for poor farmers who cannot mechanise. If economic differentiation increases, opportunities for household members to obtain income by working for richer landowners may also grow, and the expansion of towns and commercial agriculture may generate seasonal off-farm employment, both of which make possible larger households than would otherwise be the case. With the dispersal of income sources, family solvency is less dependent on solidarity and singleness of effort, and commercialisation gives heirs an opportunity to translate their claims into money, which reduces the importance of inherit- ance as an influence on behaviour and thereby may reduce the frequency of extended families. The growth of market outlets (due to increases in demand for food and improvements in transport) gives alternative uses for surpluses apart from their redistribution among retainers and allies. The state may provide for some of the advantages formerly given by large households, such as defence and consumption insurance. Goals are likely to change at the same time.

34 Robert W d The utility of money may rise as consumer goods become available, and indices of prestige may change to material assets rather than, for example, number of sons. As the relative returns to raw labour power decline and educational opportunities expand, surplus household production may be invested in education of children instead of in a band of retainers. This gives no more than the barest idea of possible effects of urban industrial growth on the organisation of rural households. Two further points may be made, which more adequately suggest the complexity of trying to understand the determinants of household organisation as development occurs: It might be expected that the larger the number of children in a household the higher the pro- portion of household production which must be consumed and the lower the (gross) proportion sold. But if government policies for rural development affect primarily the commercial farmers, as is generally the case, families with large numbers of children obtain less state assistance (credit, fertiliscrs, advice, etc.) and are more likely to remain poor; so fertility rates remain high, which means the pro- portion of consumers to producers in each household remains high, which makes it likely that a high proportion of production will have to be consumed: the circle is vicious. Again, poor households (which have a lower capacity to take risks than richer ones) are less likely to make use of government assistance and therefore more likely to rely on kinsmen as a menas of spreading risks. So as development pro- ceeds, large and extended households may be commonner among poorer farmers than among the richer (though on the other hand, if a household is rich potential members are more likely to want to opt in). In short, as the state becomes a more important source of resources, differential ease of access to its resources by rich and poor farmers is likely to exert some influence on household structures.

6. The relations of the model operate in the context of power relations within and beyond the household, and while some of these may affect household size and composition via the variables in the model, they may also have independent effects. For example, the prediction which links inheritance rules with household structure (prediction 4, above) connects them through the effect of inheritance rules on consumption expectations: a son will compare his consumption expectations inside and outside the household and will decide to stay or leave on that basis. In fact, a non-inheriting son may have no choice but to leave if the inheriting son does not wish him to stay, and the latter may be able to appeal to sanctions of national or local law to enforce his will.

A “Return to Labour” Theory of Peaant Household Organisation 35

Again, it has been suggested that the predominance of the nuclear family among South Italian cultivators is due to the fact that: (a) land is available in scattered plots and small amounts, (b) rental contracts are short-term and insecure, (c) land and labour are con- tracted for on an individual rather than a family basis, so that the position of the household head is not bolstered by being responsible to a landlord for all his family.16 Of these, the returns to labour theory can handle the first two and would correctly predict small unextended households; but the third, which relates to the dis- tribution of authority within the household and to the way lan- dlords and the state reinforce that authority, lies outside the frame- work.

Finally, patron-client relations may limit the adjustments which can be made. Formally, as in the inheritance case, this may be taken into account by including penalties for going against the will of the patron in the calculations to leave or stay; but like many exchange theories of social life the model set out here handles poorly the facts of power and coercion.

CONCLUSZON

As the foregoing makes clear, the simplicity of the model is obtained at high cost in terms of realism. Any theory must obviously be simpler than the reality it purports to interpret, but the question is whether the model is not too simple to be at all interesting. Let us be clear what kind of theory it is. It is a partial rather than general equilibrium theory;” hence the line W (representing remuneration in alternative work) can be held constant as household size changes, even though if all house- holds change W may also change. In a general equilibrium setting this interdependence would have to be considered. Second, it is a compa- rative static rather than a dynamic theory, which means that theprocess of change cannot be handled; it compares a situation before a given change in one variable with the new equilibrium after the change but can say little about the intervening period (though it gives us some idea of what to look for). Finally, it is a theory of mass behaviour only, seen in the form of an ideal-type household, not a theory of individual households. There are then, strict limits on the kind of questions it can answer, which apply to all comparative static, partial equilibrium theories of mass behaviour.

More specifically, we can distinguish six types of questions which we

36 Robert Waa2

might want to ask about household size: (1) Why does X’s household contain (say) 6 persons? (2) Why is the average size of households in area A 6 persons? ( 3 ) Why has X’s household decreased from 10 to 6 persons? (4) Why has average household size in area A decreased (increased)? (5) Why does X’s household contain 6 persons, but Y’s contains lo? ( 6 ) Why is the average size of households in area A 6 , but in area B lo? Of these, the theory set out here is likely to be helpful only for (4) and ( 6 ) . It can provide the basis for a guess about (3) and ( 5 ) . The others are out of reach. The theory has the large advantage that little information about real households is needed before it can be applied; the investigator does not have to spend a lot of time and money collecting information before he can answer some useful questions. But for the same reason the theory can say little about real decision-making and processes of change. To answer ( I ) , (2), ( 3 ) and (5) much more information would be needed, including not only demographic infor- mation but also information on decision-making and distribution mechanisms within the household, and information about the urban labour market. Such a theory would undoubtedly be much richer; with it one could make a start on important questions such as how severe land scarcity must be before people perceive advantages in leaving the household, and how strong are the connections between those who go and those who stay behind. But such a theory would also be much more difficult to devise and use.’*

NOTES

’ An earlier vcrsion of this paper was writrcn for a post-graduate vminar at Susxx Universiry. in 1970. I am gratcful to mcmbcrs of that seminar for their comments, and to Michael Lipton, David Evans and Mick Moore who commented subxqucntly.

Rcfcr to Goody (cd ) 1958. Field work was carried out in 1969 and 1970, financed by thc Social Scicnccs Rcxarch

Council (UK) and thc Ncw Zcaland Universitics Grants Commitrcc. The study of house- hold organisation was a subsidiary pan of a study of formal associations, on which a book is forthcoming. ‘ That is, the distributive cffccts of thc land reform werc held, not rcvcrscd, by later population change. ’ For a somewhat similar approach to that adopted hcrc, xc Chayanov (1966). Scc also Fisk (1962 and 1964).

I ux ‘farm houxhold’ to m a n a houxhold which is engaged primarily in agricultural production. The term docs not imply that thc land workcd by thc houxhold forms a single intcgratcd unit. ’ For a simple exposition, rcfer to Lipxy (1966: 270-274). * The line W shows thc returns a mcmber forgoes by remaining in the household; this is thc

A “Return to Labour‘’ Theory of Peasant Household Organisation 3 1

‘opportunity cost’ of labour to thc household. In reality, of course, thc opportunity cost for each pcrson will vary depending on sex, age, skills, ctc: thcre is not a singlc opportunity cost line for all household mcmbcrs. As industry expands the opportunity cost of farm labour increases; but cvcn in a closed community agricultural labour h a s J m opportunity cost. For a gcncnl discussion of the ‘opportunity cost’ concept in cconomics, scc L i p q (1w; 60-61). 9 More precisely, the theory implics that a person has an inccntivc to join the household of his/hcr spouse if the returns to the additional pcrson are higher in the spouse’s household than in thc pcrson’s own natal houschold, or some other household. l o See Fisk (1962 and 1964) for an analysis of the conscqucnccs on subsistcncc units of a consumption demand ceiling, surplus capacity, and low utility of money. Although he docs not concern himself dircctly with anthropological questions, his papcrs arc of intcrcst to anyonc wishing to apply dcductivc modcls in anthropology.

See Goldshmidt and Kunkel (1971). For a critical vicw of their argument sec Moorc (1973). l 2 Boserup (1965) argues that historically, increases in intcnsity of land use have been a major type of adjustmcnt to increasing population, causing tightening of propcrty rights and growing diffcrcntiation between households.

’‘ O n this, rcfcr to the intcrcsting papcr by Fricdl (1959), whcrc attitudes towards land in rural Greece and Ireland arc compared. l ’ Sec Rao 1972. l6 Scc Goldshmidt and Kunkcl (1971). Thc contrast is with the m z d t - i d organisation of Ccntral Italy (sec Silverman, 1968). ” O n the distinction bctwcen partial and gcncral equilibrium theory, sce Lipsey (1966:

I havc touched hcrc on an issuc which has bccn the subject of much dcbatc in cconomics, and which is rclcvant to artcmpts to usc deductive thcory in anthropology: the criteria for acccpting or rcjccting a theory, and the usefulncss of abstract theory b l x d on ‘unmlistic’ assumptions. Much of thc dcbatc has ccntcrcd around Friedman’s article (1953). A bricf history of the background and a r l y dcvclopmcnt of the dcbatc is given in Archibald (1959). Fricdman’s position has bccn criticised by Rorwcin (1959) and Clarkson (1963). amongst many others. Scc also Nagcl (1963).

I havc shown how the gcncral ideas of the ‘rcturns to labour’ model can be used, in a reappraisal of Jack Goody’s explanation of diffcrcnccs in farming s i x betwccn nearby communitics in Ghana (see Wade, 1975). In elaborating thc model, as set out herc, morc attention needs to bc paid to: (1) what can be done with the resources available, ( 2 ) who decides within thc household, (3) who bencfits within the household.

c.g. Horri (1972).

499-502).

REFERENCES

ARCHIBALD, G. C. (1959), Thc state of economic xicncc, British J. Philosophy Scicncc. 10

BOSERUP, E. (1965), T h c Conditions of Agricultural Growth, (London: Allen & Unwin). CHAYANOV, A. (1966), Thc Thcoty of Peasant Economy, in: Thomcr, D. ct al. (cds.).

CLARKSON, G. P. E. (1963), Thc Thcory of Consumer Demand: A Critical Appraisal, (Ncw

58-69.

American Economic Association, Translation Scrics.

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38 Robert Wad?

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SUMMARY

In a peasant community where access to land is vital for livelihood, the amount of land to which each household has access is a major influence on its size and composition. The paper develops this idea by means of a model derived from neoclassical economics. The model provides a framework for showing the relevance not only of land, but also tech- nology, intensity of cultivation, urban labour market, and other ‘eco- nomic’ variables, as well as ‘kinship’ variables such as norms of in- heritance. But it is of limited use for handling power and coercion as influences on household organization.

A “Return to Labour” Theoty of Peasant Household Otganisatzon 39

RLSLJME

Dans une commune rurale, pour laquelle l’acds h la terre est d’une importance vitale, la quantii de terre, h laquelle chaque mknage a accis, est une facteur d’influence capital sur son Ctendue et sa composition. L‘article dkeloppe cette conception moyennant un modde, qui est dCrivk des sciences kconomiques nkoclassiques. Le modde fournit un cadre qui ne dtmontre non seulement l’importance de la terre, mais aussi I’importance de la technologie, du degrt d’aminagement, du marchk du travail citadin et d’autres variables ((kconomiques)) et des variables de ((parenti)), comme les riglements de succession.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

In einer Landgemeinde, in welcher der Zugang zu Boden lebenswichtig ist, ist die Menge an Boden, zu der jeder Haushalt Zugang hat, eine Hauptbeeinflussende auf dessen GroDe und Zusammensetzung. Der Artikel entwickelt diese Vorstellung mittels eines von der neoklassi- schen Okonomik abgeleiteten Modelles. Das Model1 liefert einen Rahmen, um nicht nur die Bedeutung von Boden, sondern auch der Technologie, des Bebauungsgrades, des stadtischen Arbeitsmarktes und anderer ‘okonomischer’ Variablen als auch der ‘Verwandtschafts’- Variablen wie Erbregelungen, zu zeigen.