This paper explores patterns of exit from agriculture in rural Bangladesh by utilizing nationally representative repeat cross-section and pseudo-panel survey data. Our analysis focuses at the rural household level where we focus on three types of households: (a) “pure” agriculture households in which all workers are employed only in agriculture; (b) “mixed” households in which some members remain in the farm sector and others pursue nonfarm activities, and (c) rural “nonfarm” households who are exclusively dependent on non-agricultural employment.

We find that non-farm orientation has increased over the 2000 to 2013 period, and that nonfarm households rely more on salaried employment and less on unpaid work. Pseudo-panel data based on age-cohort of household heads from the Labor Force Survey (LFS) of 2000 and 2013 also shows a notable increase in mixed households formed by diversification of activities of formerly farm-only households. Employment patterns of younger households are changing especially rapidly: the share of mixed households among households with heads age 15–30 years increased from 17% to 30% in this period. Proximity to urban areas also is associated with a rapid shift in household employment patterns over time. In areas less than 2.5 kms from cities, the share of pure farm households fell from 46.5 to 30.3 percent of households, while the share of mixed households rose from 14.8 to 33.7 percent.

Overall, our findings confirm a process of transformation involving a shift from predominantly agriculture employment to increased non-farm employment. We find that the structural transformation considered does not necessarily involve large-scale permanent migration to cities. Rather, much of the shift out of agriculture occurs within rural areas with especially rapid change happening in areas of close proximity to cities.

本文利用具有国家代表性的重复截面和伪面板调查数据，探索了孟加拉国农村地区农业退出的模式。我们的分析集中在农村家庭层面，在这里我们关注三种类型的家庭：（a）所有工人仅从事农业工作的“纯”农业家庭；（b）一些成员仍留在农业部门而其他成员从事非农业活动的“混合”家庭，以及（c）完全依赖非农业就业的农村“非农业”家庭。

我们发现，在2000年至2013年期间，非农就业倾向有所增加，而且非农家庭更多地依靠有薪工作，而更少地依靠无薪工作。基于2000年和2013年劳动力调查（LFS）的户主年龄组的伪面板数据还显示，由于以前仅农场家庭的活动多样化而形成的混合家庭显着增加。年轻家庭的就业模式正在发生特别迅速的变化：户主年龄在15至30岁之间的家庭中混合家庭的比例在此期间从17％增加到30％。随着时间的流逝，靠近城市地区还与家庭就业模式的快速转变有关。在距城市不到2.5公里的地区，纯农户所占比例从46.5％下降到30.3％，

总体而言，我们的研究结果证实了这一转变过程，包括从主要的农业就业向非农就业的增长。我们发现，所考虑的结构转型不一定涉及大规模永久性迁移至城市。相反，农业的大部分转移发生在农村地区，尤其是在靠近城市的地区发生了迅速的变化。