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Colombia Rural Wages
Agricultural wages remained stagnant in real terms
during the
1935-64 period, and in 1964 they were only 90 percent of
the wages
of unskilled construction workers and about 33 percent of
those of
blue-collar industrial workers (see
table 5, Appendix).
Except for
a small increase in the early 1960s, real wages in
agriculture
changed little until the mid-1970s, when they increased
substantially until 1980.
In contrast to the dampening effect of a labor surplus
in the
1960s, the employment boom of the 1970s began to raise
agricultural
wages. The introduction of the caturra variety of
coffee
during the 1970s led to large-scale replanting and land
preparation
for new plantations, which, combined with the boom in
marijuana
production and cocaine processing, greatly increased labor
demand
in rural areas. Rapidly growing urban employment in this
period
also pulled agricultural workers into the urban economy,
thus
creating increasing labor scarcity in rural areas.
Agricultural
labor productivity over the 1974-79 period was estimated
to have
grown at roughly 3.7 percent per year, providing much of
the basis
for rising real wages. The booming terms of trade for
coffee
producers were also captured to some extent by workers in
agriculture. In addition, the rise in the real minimum
wage
beginning in 1973 may also have been a contributing
factor. The
stagnation in the agricultural real wage after 1978
reflected the
substantially slower growth in the sector and the economy
during
this period.
Data as of December 1988
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