The professional activity and sources of income of families in subsistence holdings

The number of population connected with subsistence holdings can be estimated as 3.7 mln⁴, it is around 10% of the country population, so it is quite a big social group. This is by no means a group of social population, as it is often defined, which probably origins from the commodity agricultural holding.

660 thousand people work as paid workforce, whereas an absolute majority (97%) works also additionally in an agricultural holding. Around 100 thousand people are engaged in own extra-agricultural activity. In agricultural holdings 1952.2 thousand people work, including exclusively – around 1200 thousand people, out of which for a significant part this is not the basic source of income.

This is because a subsistence holding creates an opportunity to spend the marginal work. This first of all relates to people of advanced age. People of 65 and more years of age constitute 1/5 of people working in subsistence holdings.

For these holdings there are 52.3% of people of 65 and more years of age working at all in individual holdings. This also has a meaning for keeping the psychophysical condition (and health) of those persons.

Table 7. Households connected with a user of an agricultural holding receiving incomes from extra-agricultural sources

(in percentage of total holdings^a)

Listing In total SAM Commodity

In total with extra-agricultural incomes 80,6 92,2 72,4

Extra-agricultural activity 8,4 7,3 9,1

Hired work 41,5 44,9 39,1

Retirement pays and pensions 42,8 53,1 35,7

Other non-earned sources 4,4 5,4 3,7

a data can exceed 100, because a household can have incomes from more than one extra-agricultural sources

Source: GUS data.

One of the most important features of contemporary individual agriculture is a growing separation of a household from an agricultural holding. This is proved by an increasingly smaller percentage of households connected with agriculture supported exclusively by one source – agricultural activity in own

4 Assuming the same number of people in a subsistence holding as it was established on the basis of the 2002 national census data (on average 3.62). Compare Ludność i gospodarstwa domowe związane z rolnictwem. Cz. II. Gospodarstwa domowe. GUS, Warszawa 2003, tab. 7.

holding⁵. Around 4/5 of individual holdings conducting agricultural activity receives incomes also from other sources apart from their own agricultural activity. In case of subsistence holdings this is over 9/10, while in case of other holdings – almost 3/4 (table 7). These are high indexes proving the fundamental change of the status of a household in terms of spending work and sources of income.

In subsistence holdings we observe a greater frequency of incomes from hired work (the result of a greater employment competition outside an agricultural holding in relation to work in an agricultural holding), and especially incomes from retirement pays and pensions (a reflection of less beneficial age structure of people in this group). This indicates a common phenomenon of retired persons and pensioners supporting auxiliary agricultural holdings mainly oriented at subsistence. This expresses a relatively common phenomenon of pensioners in agriculture (a higher percentage of disabled people) and a low level of pensions and retirement pays forcing to maintain an auxiliary agricultural holding. Probably this is also the result of many other factors, including legal provisions on the agricultural system.

The frequency of existence of incomes from extra-agricultural sources, especially of individual sources, has some peculiarities connected with the spatial (regional) distribution. Most often there are incomes from retirement and pension benefits (53% of subsistence holdings). In the first place here is the podkarpackie voivodeship, where as many as 63% of subsistence holdings receive income from such source, next the małopolskie (58%) and the lubelskie voivodeships (56%).

In the last positions there are voivodeships: mazowieckie (40%), opolskie (43%), wielkopolskie and kujawsko-pomorskie (45% each). There are the results of two-professionalism, as well as transferring agricultural holdings in return for retirement benefits.

The phenomenon of two-professionalism consisting in joining work in an agricultural holding and work outside agriculture was and still is particularly common in Southern Poland. The phenomenon of receiving incomes from hired work is mostly encountered in the voivodeships małopolskie (52%), podkarpackie (47%) and łódzkie (47%), and least in the voivodeships warmińsko-mazurskie (35%), dolnośląskie (38%), lubelskie and zachodniopomorskie (39% each), as well as wielkopolskie (40%).

5 Such holdings – according to data of the 2002 national census – constituted only 7.8% of households connected with a user of an individual agricultural holding (220 thousand). See more J. S. Zegar, ród³a utrzymania…, op. cit.

Table 8. Subsistence holdings achieving extra-agricultural incomes by voivodeships

A – percentage of holdings receiving income from a given source; B – holdings with a prevailing source of income in % of holdings receiving income from a given source

Source: GUS data.

Incomes from own extra-agricultural activity most often are present in voivodeships pomorskie (12%) and wielkopolskie (11%), and the least often in podkarpackie (4%), lubelskie and lubuskie (5% each) voivodeships. It is difficult to find one reason, however many signs indicate essential meaning in this respect of the so called human and social capital.

Attention is drawn by the differences in the scope of receiving incomes from a given source and a percentage of households for which they constitute a prevailing source of income (column B in table 8). In case of hired work, incomes from it constitute a prevailing source of income for 77% of families connected with subsistence holdings. In case of retirement and pension benefits, an analogous percentage is a little lower (74%), in case of own extra-agricultural activity 63% and in case of other non-earned sources of income – 36%. This indirectly indicates the relative amount of income from those sources. Incomes from hired work are obviously the biggest, however, generally speaking they are

dolnośląskie 90,7 8,3 73,3 38,2 79,2 51,8 82,6 4,3 44,4 kujawsko-pomorskie 89,9 7,3 69,7 44,7 82,1 44,9 76,9 7,3 52,2 lubelskie 90,8 5,2 67,6 38,7 73,9 56,1 79,6 5,7 48,7

lubuskie 95,1 5,2 71,8 40,2 87,5 54,5 82,8 7,1 56,1

łódzkie 91,5 7,9 53,4 46,8 79,4 47,0 73,6 4,9 40,8

małopolskie 95,7 9,4 58,7 51,6 70,6 58,1 64,3 4,7 22,0 mazowieckie 85,8 8,3 70,2 44,2 77,6 39,9 75,1 5,6 31,8

opolskie 87,9 9,3 87,5 44,5 90,2 42,8 79,2 3,2 50,2

podkarpackie 96,4 4,4 62,4 47,4 72,5 63,0 70,6 6,4 26,6 podlaskie 90,4 6,3 63,0 45,1 81,3 46,6 75,8 5,8 35,8 pomorskie 89,4 11,5 68,1 46,4 78,4 46,0 66,4 7,7 38,5

śląskie 95,0 7,0 54,3 46,1 84,8 52,7 84,6 3,7 43,4

świętokrzyskie 87,7 7,1 56,0 40,2 74,5 51,1 70,6 4,1 42,0 warmińsko-mazurskie 86,1 5,6 52,8 35,4 82,6 48,4 82,7 9,0 49,0 wielkopolskie 86,4 10,7 72,5 39,9 78,9 45,2 73,5 5,4 43,5 zachodniopomorskie 90,6 8,4 64,6 38,7 82,6 51,6 84,2 5,4 46,6

low (the effect of low remunerations of poorly qualified workforce), incomes from social benefits are lower; and incomes from the extra-agricultural activity are also low on account of the character of this activity (in majority it is small trade). The lowest level of income from other non-earrrned sources of income is obvious and justified. We do not comment on the regional differences in this scope, because this would require a longer disquisition and quoting other data.

Achieving incomes from non-agricultural sources and the economic weakness in majority of subsistence microholdings determines the structure of families connected with those holdings, according to a prevailing source of income (table 9).

Table 9. The basic sources of income of families connected with individual holdings (per cent)

Listing Agricultural holding Hired work Retirement pays and pensions

In total 26,9 29,7 27,1

Subsistence 11,0 34,4 39,2

Commodity 37,7 26,4 18,6

Source: GUS data.

Drawing 3. Basic sources of income of subsistence holdings