Page 388 - Ranah Studi Agraria: Penguasaan Tanah dan Hubungan Agraris

Agrarian and Nonagrarian Bases ...

F. Changes in Hired Labor Use, Wage Rates, and Labor
Arrangements
In the previous section we have observed the growth in
the proportion of households who, being neither owners nor
cultivators of sawah, have potential access to paddy incomes
only in the form of wages. Earlier, we noted that as paddy
production has increased, the proportion of paddy income

per hectare paid out in the form of wages (i.e., the income
available for division among this growing group) has gener-
ally declined although in most cases it has absolutely increased.
These trends might reflect changes in the amount of hired la-
bor used per hectare, changes in wage rates for specific forms
of labor, changes in the mode of hire labor recruitment and
payment, or some combination of these.
Table 7.8 compares preharvest labor use per hectare (har-
vest labor being almost impossible to estimate reliably) in the
wet seasons 1970- 1971 and 1980-1981. In four villages total
labor use per hectare has remained virtually stable, in two
(Jatisari, Rowosari) it has sharply declined, and in two
(Kebanggan, Geneng) it has sharply increased. Hired labor use
on the other hand has declined in five villages and increased in
only two. (We exclude Sentul, where the transition from ex-
change to hired labor has only recently begun, with only 14 of
paddy farmers using any hired labor at all in 1981.) Since the
demand for transplanting labor (a female task) is not affected
by new technology, the reasons for the decline may be mainly
sought in labor use and technology in land preparation, the
main male task in preharvest work. As shown in Table 7.8,
tractor use in Geneng has displaced both hoeing labor and

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