a historical analysis of public policies

2023-11-14 00:00:00

Résumés

Despite fragmented scientific knowledge on the subject, the number of precarious agricultural employees as well as the cost and diversity of policies targeting them are increasing in France. To study the evolution of the institutional framework regulating the use of these employees in the agricultural sector, this article periodizes the public policies supporting this use from the 1960s until 2019, in connection with the development model promoted by the authorities. public. These policies first aimed to increase the income of all agricultural workers (1960-1989); then policies dedicated to precarious employment accompanied the promotion of a competitive agriculture model (1990-2002); finally, the promotion of the use of precarious employment becomes more central between 2002 and 2019.

Despite fragmented scientific knowledge on the subject, the number of precarious agricultural workers and the cost and diversity of policies targeting them are increasing in France. In order to study the evolution of the institutional framework regulating the use of these employees in agriculture, this article periodises the public policies supporting this use from the 1960s to 2019, in relation to the development model promoted by the public authorities. These policies were first aimed at increasing the income of all agricultural workers (1960-1989); then policies focused on precarious workers supported the promotion of a competitive agricultural model (1990-2002); finally, the promotion of the use of precarious workers became more central between 2002 and 2019.

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Plan

Precarious employment: a central workforce in French agriculture

A regulationist framework for studying sectoral economic dynamics

A diversity of data at the service of analysis

A periodization of policies regulating salaried agricultural work

1. From 1960 to 1989: a convergence of the rights of agricultural and non-agricultural employees

2. From 1990 to 2001: liberalization and reduction in the cost of salaried labor

3. From 2001 to 2019: precarious employment, a lever of competitiveness for entrepreneurial agriculture

Support for the use of precarious employment, a recomposition of the social relationship of activity

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The notion of precariousness is polysemous in social sciences. Here, the choice was to limit ourselves to precarious employment, that is to say to professional statuses offering social guarantees only limited in time, contrary to other definitions including the question of the instability of income and professional trajectories. This choice makes it possible to clearly delimit a scope of employees employed under specific professional statuses and the public policies that concern them. A precarious employee is therefore an employee engaged in fixed-term employment contracts. This status-centered definition is classic in economics (Barbier, 2002) and in the study of agricultural employees (Cahuzac and Détang-Dessendre, 2011; Potot, 2010).

With this definition, precarious employees today represent the majority of French agricultural workers. In 2016, they…

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To cite this article

Paper reference

Axel Magnan and Aurélie Find, “The regulation of precarious employment in French agriculture: a historical analysis of public policies”, Rural economy386 | 2023, 25-44.

Electronic reference

Axel Magnan and Aurélie Find, “The regulation of precarious employment in French agriculture: a historical analysis of public policies”, Rural economy [En ligne], 386 | October-December 2023, posted online on January 5, 2025consulted the November 15, 2023. URL : DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/economierurale.11999

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