Die Bodenkultur - Journal for Land Management, Food and Environment

F. Weiß:

Determinants for the probability to switch between part- and full-time farming in Austrian farm households

Summary

In this paper I present a model which estimates the influence of various farm-specific factors on the dynamics of off-farm employment. As data base I basically used the single-farm data of the Austrian agricultural censuses of the years 1995 and 1999. Those were complemented by the IACS-data in order to improve the estimates of farm income. The used method is a logistic regression model in order to estimate the probabilities for a change from full-time to part-time farming and vice versa. As a main result the model shows that a higher standard gross margin and higher direct subsidies reduce the probability for a change to part-time farming, while they increase the probability for a change to full-time farming. Further farm-related factors are the number of milk-cows and the degree of production handicap. Moreover, the farm leader’s age, education and family size as well as a change of farm leadership or off-farm work in the preceding period are shown to be relevant. Key words: Part-time farming, structural change, agriculture, logistic regression, modelling.