Village characteristics and employment choice in rural Philippines

Abstract

This paper examines Philippine rural employment choice and patterns. It uses a first-of-a-kind dataset that consolidates data from the Family Income and Expenditure Survey 2000 (FIES), the Census of Population Barangay Schedule 2000 (CPH5), and the Agrarian Reform Community (ARC) Level of Development Assessment 2000 (ALDA). A multinomial logit model is utilized to determine employment likelihood in different sectors given a set of individual and household attributes, and village characteristics. The results reveal that the lack of facilities, services, and formal establishments is primarily responsible for keeping rural dwellers in the impoverished agricultural and informal service sectors. This study also shows that individual and household attributes are generally in accord with theory and other empirical studies.