LABOR ABSORPTION AND AGRICULTURAL-DEVELOPMENT - BANGLADESH EXPERIENCE AND PREDICAMENT

Significant employment gains have resulted from the Green Revolution technologies in Bangladesh. While the kharif (wet) season employment has remained more or less stagnant, employment in the rabi (dry) season increased fourfold between the early 1960s and the late 1980s. With overall crop sector employment increasing by 30%, interseasonal differences in employment have declined steadily. The employment-generating effect of the Green Revolution is slowing down, i.e. agricultural growth at the margin has become progressively less labor intensive in recent years. Changes in the occupational structure may merely reflect a relocation of surplus labor from the farm to the nonfarm sector (where it is also largely surplus) rather than heralding a real turning point. In Bangladesh, there is little prospect of agriculture providing much greater employment and there is little sign that labor transfer in Bangladesh will lead to a pattern of successful industrialization as in the contemporary developed countries of East Asia or the Western countries.