Abstract
This study examines parents’ perspectives on their children working on their family dairy farms in Wisconsin. The objective of this focus group study is (1) to gain insights on why children work on their family farms, (2) to identify those benefits that parents perceive that they and their children gain from their children working on-farm, (3) to determine the concerns that parents have about their children working, (4) to identify ways to improve the safety of children on family farms, and (5) to understand how US agricultural policy impacts family decisions to use their children’s labor on their farms. The two focus groups reveal that fathers and mothers have different concerns and different perceptions regarding the benefits gained from having their children work on farms. The findings suggest that in response to US agricultural policy, parents are increasingly reliant upon their children’s labor. Children work the longest hours on economically stressed farms.
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Lydia Zepeda is a fellow of the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy and professor of Consumer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned her MS and PhD in Agricultural Economics at the University of California at Davis. Her research interests include agricultural technology adoption, risk perceptions, household decision-making, and consumer food demand.
Jongsoog Kim is a research fellow at Korea Women’s Development Institute in Seoul, Korea. She earned her PhD in Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include gender economics, labor supply of women and children, intrahousehold resource allocation, and consumer policies.
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Zepeda, L., Kim, J. Farm Parents’ Views on their Children’s Labor on Family Farms: A Focus Group Study of Wisconsin Dairy Farmers. Agric Hum Values 23, 109–121 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-004-5873-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-004-5873-8