Rural labour market policies in Croatia, FYR of Macedonia and Turkey

Abstract

Considerable differences are found among countries regarding the importance of the agricultural labour force, between rural and urban labour, and in poverty and living conditions in rural areas. Declines in the agricultural labour force and rural population are foreseen for each of the countries, but with significant variations between them. Showing different patterns over time, labour market developments in the sector and in rural areas have been shaped by the overall labour market institutions, conditions and factors in each country, such as the legal basis, educational attainment and migration flows, and the presence of non-agricultural activities in rural areas.

Keywords:

• labour market
• agricultural and rural labour structures
• candidate countries
• European Union

JEL Classifications:

• J21
• J43
• J88

Acknowledgements

The constructive comments and suggestions by the anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. This paper is a result of research conducted within the project ‘Factor Markets: Comparative Analysis of Factor Markets for Agriculture across the Member States’, 245123-FP7-KBBE-2009-3. Contributions and responses by Radmila Jovančević for Croatia, Verica Janeska for the FYR of Macedonia and Abdulbaki Bilgic for Turkey are gratefully acknowledged.