Page 271 - Ranah Studi Agraria: Penguasaan Tanah dan Hubungan Agraris

Ranah Studi Agraria

sistance program to income earners in a wide range of sectors,
are two good examples of a shift in government thinking. More-
over, after showing rice wage stagnancy for the decade 1968/
69–1977/78 (see Makali, 1978), micro studies now suggest

real wages in the rice sector have risen over the past 5–6 years.
One study tentatively suggests that labor shortages, may be
quite widespread in Java, particularly in lowland areas close
to major urban centers and at peak periods in the rice agricul-
tural cycle (Collier, et al., 1983; see also Kasryno, 1983; Husein
Sawit, Saefudin and Sri Hartoyo, 1984).
The importance of non agricultural employment as a
source of rural incomes in Java is by no means a very recent
theme in the literature on the rural economy. White’s study of
Kaliloro (Yogyakarta) in 1972/1973 showed that despite ex-
traordinarily low returns per hour, households worked long
hours in cottage industry (White, 1976). A series of surveys
conducted by the Agro Economic Survey (SAE) 1976–1978
in villages in West and East Java indicated that a wide range of
non agricultural activities were a major source of employ-
ment for both poor and better off households, although there
were major interclass differences in the role which these ac-
tivities played in the household economy: for poorer, land-

less or near landless families the proportion of total income
from nonfarm sources was relatively high despite large labor
inputs and low returns per hour worked (especially, as White
found, in cottage industry). On the other hand, among larger
land owing families returns tended to be much higher but the
contribution of non agricultural employment to total income
was on average smaller than income from the rice sector

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