Sustainable Socio-Economic Welfare and Agricultural Employment in ECOWAS: Is there a Non-Linear Relationship?
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. Agriculture is central to welfare especially in the context of developing countries
which include those of ECOWAS, however among those individuals’ dependent on
agriculture for their livelihood are those living in poverty and earning low incomes amongst
other living standards. On the other hand, sustainable socio-economic welfare is not given
much attention in the welfare literature compared to other welfare categorisations such as
socio-economic welfare and economic welfare. This study explores the effect of agricultural
employment on sustainable socio-economic welfare as well as the possibility of a non-linear
relationship between the aforementioned variables in a balanced panel of Fifteen ECOWAS
member countries. Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) was used as proxy for
Sustainable socio-economic welfare, while the proportion of employed individuals realising
a living from agriculture is the measure for agricultural employment. The results from
utilising panel data fixed effects estimation show that agricultural employment adversely and
significantly resulted in sustainable socio-economic welfare declining while the hypothesis
of non-linear relationship between the aforementioned variables was not supported.
Consequently, the study recommends that ECOWAS member country governments in raising
welfare levels focus necessarily on sustainable socio-economic welfare rather than socioeconomic
welfare that has been the traditional focus of welfare efforts. Also ECOWAS
country governments should ensure that agriculture sector interventions effectively target the
poor and vulnerable households relying on agriculture for their livelihood.
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare, S Agriculture (General)