ECONOMIC ANALYSIS ON PATTERNS OF INCOME-EMPLOYMENT OF RURAL HOUSEHOLDS

The study was undertaken to analyze the socioeconomic characteristics of the rural households; the patterns of income and employment generating activities; the various sources of household income and their relative shares in total income, and the factors affecting income generating activities. Primary data were collected from 30 landless, 30 small, 20 medium and 10 large farm households from 3 villages of Gopalpur upazila of Tangail district. Major sources of household income and employment were agriculture sector i.e., crop, livestock, fisheries, homestead gardening, agril. wage laborer, etc., and non-agricultural activities such as service, petty trading, rickshaw pulling, day labourer, etc. Average annual income of the sample households were Tk.30456, 53640, 77243 and 96352 respectively for landless, small, medium and large farm households. Average annual man-days employed in different activities of the respondents were 297, 279, 274 and 277 days respectively for landless, small, medium and large farm households. The double log regression model revealed that the key variables included in the model were individually or jointly responsible for variation in average annual income.