Page 273 - Ranah Studi Agraria: Penguasaan Tanah dan Hubungan Agraris

Ranah Studi Agraria

wage labor. One implication of this hypothesized development
in employment structure is that the notion of an earnings ‘lad-
ders’ (with rice sector employment at the top and self employed
cottage industry activities at the bottom of the ladder), which

determines labor allocation and incomes of different economic
classess in rural Java (Lluch and Mazumdar, 1983: 83-84, 103-
106) needs to be reconsidered. If indeed poor households are
being pulled out of agriculture by higher non agricultural wage
opportunities, then the specific form of the ladder, and its em-
ployment and income distribution consequences, proposed by
Lluch and Mazumdar is no longer appropriate.
One important theme in previous SAE research on rural
employment has been contrasts in lowland and upland village
employment structure and differential class access to income
opportunities within and outside agriculture. The studies men-
tioned above emphasized in particular the importance of farm
laboring as a source of incomes for poorer lowland families
and also a major source of nonfarm employment for better off
families in the lowland: in upland villages, however, extremely
low productivity cottage industry was the major source of
employment for the poor, whereas better-off households ob-
tained much higher earnings in trade and other non agricul-

tural pursuits (see especially Memed Gunawan, 1979). In this
paper we will also look at lowland and upland differences in
employment structure by landowning and cultivation class.
In the next section (Section B) we look at major data sour-
ces, sampling methodology and overall characteristics of the
sample villages. This is followed by a detailed description of
sawah land ownership patterns, including distribution of land

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