The Rural Labour Market in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT Wage labour in Zimbabwe is most often associated with large commercial farms. The use of wage labour within ‘peasant’ agriculture has been rarely investigated and remains largely undocumented. In 1986/7, the author conducted research in Zimbabwe which was explicitly concerned with issues of rural economic differentiation and the wage labour supplied and hired by ‘peasant’ households. The data suggest that a dynamic labour market exists in rural Zimbabwe. Further, it was found that in addition to the many part-time rural wage workers, there is a group of people who depend upon wages for all or the bulk of their income. These people, who have been largely ignored by policymakers, cannot be defined as farmers at all.     

Russian Peasant Farms and Household Plots in 2003: A Research Note

An American specialist on Russian agriculture surveys the current legal status of peasant farms and subsidiary agriculture ("private plots") in Russia following the enactment of two important new laws in 2003. In the process, he highlights differences between peasant farms and subidiary plots in terms of the quantity and type of food produced, the size of land plots utilized, and their legal status. Also reviewed are selected aspects of the recent economic perfomance of these two pillars of private-sector agriculture. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O13, O18, Q15. 16 references.     

SELF-TAUGHT WRITERS,FAMILY CORRESPONDENCE,AND SOCIAL MOBILITY IN THE 19TH-CENTURY FINNISH ARCHIPELAGO

How can the private, everyday letters written by two literate members of a rural community be used as historical sources? How can they enhance understanding of the process of upward social mobility which took place in Finland in the latter part of the 19th century and produced a new, Finnish-speaking and nationally oriented university-educated gentry? A collection of nearly 150 letters written from 1858 to 1887 by country skipper Simon Jansson and his wife Wilhelmina document in great detail their daily life and thoughts as well as the news and the social life of their seafaring community. They attest to how non-elite families were able to grasp the opportunities that were opening up for them and to give their sons a university education. For a country skipper, the favourable economic conditions for peasant seafaring after the Crimean War were decisive. The process of social mobility and the rise of the new educated elite have been studied with the social status and occupation of the students’ fathers as a starting point. The Jansson letters show that the social and cultural capital brought into the family by the mother could be crucial.     

Illegitimate birth and the English clergy, 1198-1348

This article studies illegitimacy, which was a canonical impediment to ordination, within the English clergy between 1198 and 1348. Scholarship on illegitimacy in the clergy has previously relied on canon law, conciliar decrees, and dispensations preserved in papal registers. Using these sources, historians have concluded that the papacy tightly controlled illegitimate men's access to orders, that the burdens of obtaining dispensations for illegitimacy (the defectus natalium) could pose substantial obstacles to a man's clerical career, and that priests' sons made up a significant percentage of the illegitimate clergy. This article, which draws on the large and previously untapped body of dispensations surviving in English episcopal registers to supplement the papal sources, reaches different conclusions. It argues that the great majority of illegitimate clerics in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century English clergy were the sons of unmarried lay parents. It further argues that dispensations were more readily accessible than has previously been suggested, and emphasises the importance of local branches of the ecclesiastical hierarchy to an individual's efforts to attain a dispensation to enter holy orders.     

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This article studies illegitimacy, which was a canonical impediment to ordination, within the English clergy between 1198 and 1348. Scholarship on illegitimacy in the clergy has previously relied on canon law, conciliar decrees, and dispensations preserved in papal registers. Using these sources, historians have concluded that the papacy tightly controlled illegitimate men's access to orders, that the burdens of obtaining dispensations for illegitimacy (the defectus natalium) could pose substantial obstacles to a man's clerical career, and that priests' sons made up a significant percentage of the illegitimate clergy. This article, which draws on the large and previously untapped body of dispensations surviving in English episcopal registers to supplement the papal sources, reaches different conclusions. It argues that the great majority of illegitimate clerics in the thirteenth- and fourteenth-century English clergy were the sons of unmarried lay parents. It further argues that dispensations were more readily accessible than has previously been suggested, and emphasises the importance of local branches of the ecclesiastical hierarchy to an individual's efforts to attain a dispensation to enter holy orders.     

Labour—Travail

Female outwork, according to the Tilly‐Scott thesis, is an indication of the spread of the family wage economy. Unmarried women as wage‐earners are primarily considered to be the agents of new family formation. In Hungary between 1900 and 1930, the agrarian population provided the main source of female employment both in agriculture and urban domestic service. Using standard census data, the changes in female labour force participation seem only in part to confirm the Tilly‐Scott formulation. The operation of the labour market for domestic servants in Budapest, however, underlines the definitely gendered way of how women (married and unmarried alike) qualify themselves for paid labour.     

Discovering the invisible Puerto Rican slave family: demographic evidence from the eighteenth century

Traditional notions that family life among slaves during the pre-plantation period in the non-Hispanic Caribbean was necessarily unstable are fading in light of new research. Although marriage among this segment of the population in Caguas, Cayey, San Germán, and Yauco--rural parishes in Puerto Rico--involved only a fraction of the overall number of marriages in these communities, the marriage of slaves was much more frequent than previously assumed. Family life among the eighteenth-century Puerto Rican slave population appears to have been quite stable, as shown by the reconstruction of birth intervals for both married and unmarried mothers. Married and unmarried mothers exhibited similar reproductive behavior. These results strongly suggest that a majority of the unmarried slave mothers lived in unions that were not institutionally recognized, but that were nevertheless stable, as indicated by the high percentage of their children born at intervals comparable to those of married mothers. If unmarried mothers were living in stable consensual unions, then our understanding of these slave family units during the colonial period must be reassessed not only for Puerto Rico but possibly for the rest of the Caribbean and Latin America.     

Self-Sustainability of Subsidiary Household Plots: Lessons for Privatization of Agriculture in Former Socialist Countries

A paper devoted to subsidiary household (private) plots in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union explores issues surrounding their economic viability during the current period of economic transition and agrarian reform, using Russian farms as the main example. Considerable emphasis is placed on the continuing strong linkages between subsidiary household plots and the system of collectivized agriculture, one of several factors that serves to differentiate this type of agriculture from the private (peasant) farms receiving so much attention recently as an indicator of agrarian reform. A key argument of the paper is that the performance of subsidiary household farms is not a good indicator of prospects for success of private farming in Russia, because subsidiary farms are closely linked to collectivized agriculture in terms of sources of inputs and channels for outputs, and therefore are not inherently “private.” 8 tables, 24 references.     

基于干旱脆弱性的农户系统体制转换及其影响机制——以榆中县中连川乡为例

通过问卷调查和半结构式访谈获取数据,基于社会-生态系统多体制视角,对农户系统体制及状态进行辨识,并构建农户对干旱的脆弱性指数对其进行评价;采用多元logistic模型识别农户系统体制转换影响因素,并从客观动因、主观动因和决定动因三方面,探讨农户系统体制转换的影响机制。研究表明:①研究区农户系统体制从传统农业体制,向新型农业体制和非农型体制转换。农户由于自身转化力不同,转换结果存在差异。②自然环境和社会经济发展驱动系统体制发生转换,农户期望(教育支出和家庭责任)决定转换方向,农户转变生计方式的能力(行为认知、劳动力比重和社会网络)决定转换程度,在其作用下,农户体制和状态出现差异并最终导致脆弱性分异。     

New Perspectives on Spatial Patterns of Agrarian Reform: A Comparison of Two Russian Oblasts

The author, based on field work, interviews, and examination of local and regional literature and official statistical sources, compares the experience in agrarian reform in two disparate locations—KostToma Oblast, northeast of Moscow in the Noncher-nozem Region, and Rostov Oblast on Russia's Black Sea littoral in the fertile Chernozem (Black Earth) region. It examines both the reorganization of state and collective farms and the establishment of private peasant farms in the two oblasts, with particular emphasis on the latter. The sections on private farms represent an initial attempt, based on in-depth information for a limited sample population, to garner insights, at the rayon level, into factors that may be influencing regional variations in the number, size, and location of private farms across the Russian countryside. 2 maps, 6 tables, 53 references.     

Transcending Gender Roles,Crossing Racial and Political Boundaries: Agnes Hill’s Fight for her Inheritance in German Southwest Africa

ABSTRACT

Agnes Hill, the unmarried daughter of a British landowner and farmer and his mixed-race wife, was living a ‘white’ farmer’s life in the colony German South West Africa. In 1908, she was suddenly classified as ‘native’, due to the enforcement of radical racial legislation in the German colony degrading the offspring of mixed-race people as ‘bastards’. The new classification would have had dire consequences for the whole family, especially in respect to their landownership. However, Agnes fought for her family, with the support of solicitors and – as a daughter of a British father coming from the Cape Colony – with the help of the British consul residing in the German colony. She finally succeeded in securing the estate for the family, even if she was an unmarried woman in a predominantly patriarchal settler society. Using mainly material from the court cases, the article traces Agnes Hill’s fight for the Hill inheritance, thereby investigating various crucial issues of colonial societies. It points at the changing boundaries between ‘white’ and ‘non-white’ and the ambiguity of racial classifications. The article argues that women such as Agnes Hill could play a significant role in colonial settler societies and were able to transcend gender-role boundaries.     

Parental death as a vital conjuncture? Intergenerational care and responsibility following bereavement in Senegal

This article explores the ways that parental death represents a ‘vital conjuncture’ for Serer young people that reconfigures and potentially transforms intergenerational caring responsibilities in different spatial and temporal contexts. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with young people (aged 15–27 years), family members, religious and community leaders and professionals in rural and urban Senegal, I explore young people's responses to parental death. ‘Continuing bonds’ with the deceased were expressed through memories evoked in homespace, shared family practices and gendered responsibilities to ‘take care of’ bereaved family members, to cultivate inherited farmland and to fulfil the wishes of the deceased. Parental death could reconfigure intergenerational care and lead to shifts in power dynamics, as eldest sons asserted their position of authority. While care-giving roles were associated with agency, the low social status accorded to young women's paid and unpaid domestic work undermined their efforts. The research contributes to understandings of gendered nuances in the experience of bereavement and continuing bonds and provides insight into intra-household decision-making processes, ownership and control of assets. Analysis of the culturally specific meanings of relationships and a young person's social location within hierarchies of gender, age, sibling birth order and wider socio-cultural norms and practices is needed.     

农民何以支持与参加中共革命？

内容提要 农民的支持与参加是中共革命胜利的主要保证,问题是如何解释农民的这一行为。学术界的解释与争论主要涉及四个方面：一是土地集中、家庭贫困与农民革命的关系,二是社会经济改革与农民革命的关系,三是民族主义与农民革命的关系,四是中共动员与农民革命的关系。以上说法都揭示了问题的一个主要方面,而且多是从自上而下的视角进行分析,缺乏农民自身的声音,尤其是缺乏对农民个体或群体感受的关怀。事实上,农民支持与参加革命的动机十分复杂,很难能用一条或几条理论概括。在农民支持或参加中共革命的行动中,土地分配、家庭贫困、社会经济改革以及民族主义在动员农民中究竟起了什么作用,仍需要做大量的农民个体与群体的实证研究。只有在此基础上,方可还原农民的革命动机,也才有利于中共革命胜利原因的解释。     

论清代的"呈请发遣"

清代的“呈请发遣”是指祖父母、父母通过鸣官的方式呈请官府惩戒违犯教令的子孙,官府听从家长意愿,通过国家强制力将不肖子孙远流离乡。“呈请发遣”以家长的鸣官亲告为前提,国家既尊重家长对不肖逆子的惩戒权,又给予他们鸣官的送惩权。这一手段使族内家长的自主惩戒权和国家权威相结合,从而达到相得益彰的效果。清代的“呈请发遣”律例在制定和增改的过程中,虽力求根据儒家文化所提倡的伦理思想进行灵活调整,但其仅依据一些违礼琐事便听任家长呈请惩戒的做法,使很多人遭受发遣充军之苦,从而使“呈请发遣”这一体现儒化法律的良法美意成了家长制的虐民帮凶。     

珠三角流动人口家庭化迁移特征及影响因素研究——基于家庭生命周期视角

流动人口家庭化迁移有利于家庭质量和生活幸福感的提升，对推进我国“以人为本”的新型城镇化具有重要意义。本文基于家庭生命周期理论，以珠三角流动人口核心家庭为研究对象，分析处于不同家庭生命周期流动人口的基本属性特征、家庭化迁移特征及影响因素。研究发现：①不同家庭生命周期流动人口的基本属性同质性与差异性并存。②未育夫妻家庭中夫妻分居现象严重，家庭化迁移多出于经济理性。③夫妻与未婚子女家庭以举家迁移为主，子女对家庭完整性具有积极作用，家庭化迁移更多考虑子女教育、生活照料和社会保障。④未婚者与父母家庭中，未婚者逐渐离家并以非家庭化迁移为主，父母对未婚子女生活、工作选择等保持独立性尊重。     

传统平原农区人口非农化对耕地利用方式的影响

传统平原农区是我国重要的粮食产区和人口集聚区,也将是我国未来人口城镇化的快速发展区。本文基于农村劳动力就业转移与农户家庭总收入之间的数量关系,提出农区发展演化三阶段的理论,并选取不同发展阶段的河南省吴庄村和山东省东店村进行验证。结果表明:微观层面的人口非农化特征与农户家庭总收入存在相关性,宏观层面的县域经济发展能力是农户兼业行为特征的重要外因;兼业农户通过土地流转,种植结构调整改变传统耕作方式,优化了农业与非农业收入结构,并推动农区进一步的发展演变。通过分析传统平原农区人口非农化对耕地利用方式的影响机理,对于保障粮食安全、推进该类型区的社会经济转型具有一定的现实意义。     

The very personal history of Nithard: family and honour in the Carolingian world

Nithard's Histories of the civil wars fought between Louis the Pious's sons reveal much about mid‐ninth‐century nobility, political values, and the author's changing social position. This article considers how Nithard's immediate familial history affected the text's composition. We argue that his incorporation of authorial voice and detail, crafting of the royal lineage, and emphasis on fraternitas suggest that Nithard employed the text to fight for legitimacy and honour, both familial and individual. We propose that the Histories should be read as a social commemoration of Nithard's familial memories, thus complicating the assumption that family histories were the purview of women.     

General housing characteristics of Poland

Poland has a relatively higher proportion of households as compared to number of housing units available. The distortions in housing stock have increased in Poland since the 1960s and 1970s as deficits remained very high and the demand increased in Poland while other socialist nations of eastern Europe reduced their housing deficits. Housing is important irrespective of the economic system of the country, whether socialist or non‐socialist In a socialist economy, housing is heavily subsidized to meet the minimal requirements of all the people. Though the expressed policy of the socialist country is to minimize the differences between the rural and urban areas there are still basic socio‐economic differences in existence between the rural and urban housing stock. This study found that there were distinct differences between the different macro‐regions: the buildings varied in their age, condition, uses and composition. In Warsaw or Central Poland, roofs are constructed of tar boards and the buildings are used for subsidiary uses. In the eastern and southern regions of Poland, it was found that the majority of buildings are used as single‐family buildings. Many of the dwellings in the south are single family, with roofs constructed of tin plate and sheet metal. The walls of the buildings in this area were constructed of logs and boards. Endemic to the north‐western portion of Poland are roofs constructed of tile. Many of the characteristics found within the regions of Poland stem from the cultural influences.     

Gender and living arrangements of the elderly in Iran

In 2006, the aging population in Iran had increased to about four million, representing about 7 per cent of the total population. We examined marital status and the living arrangements of this growing population based on a public use sample of the 2006 census and published data from the 1976 census. We observed a gender-based transition in living arrangements of the elderly; men continued to live with a spouse, perhaps through remarriage, continuing to be the head of household. The living pattern for women was noticeably different: about 20 per cent were unmarried and living alone but otherwise living with married children, predominantly sons. This analysis revealed a decline from the traditional pattern of co-residence with married children between 1976 and 2006 and an increase in solitary living among women. However, it raised several questions that need extensive research concerning the social, economic, and health status of the elderly in relation to their living arrangement.