Homework 2: Harvest of Shame and Farm Labor Equilibrium
(Due in class Thursday, May 25)
This answer sheet should serve as a guide for how to answer these questions. The questions are fairly open ended, and the following should only serve as an example.
- Draw a graph depicting the supply and demand for farm labor multiple farm labor markets, linked by migration. To simplify things, do this for two adjacent farm labor markets. Briefly explain where the demand and supply curves come from, and explain the meaning of the equilibrium price and quantity in this figure.
ANS: Labor demand comes from firm/farm’s profit maximization problem. Labor supply decisions are from household’s labor-leisure utility maximization problem. The resulting equilibrium price and quantities from the graph above represent the final wage and amount of labor hired in both regions, with migration being the item traded across regions A & B. The difference in labor demand and supply in each region is in/out migration. In this instance , and represents the amount of labor flowing from region B to region A.
- Propose a mover-stayer model to depict the migration decisions of seasonal farm workers featured in Harvest of Shame. Please use your theoretical model to explain why these workers participate in seasonal farm labor migration, despite the obvious hardships they face. Use quotes and excerpts from the film to back up your
ANS: Let’s define and further assume those are the only two locations available. We think net income is the primary driver behind migration, and the net income of person i going to region j (with j equaling A or B) can be written as follows:
, with being the income function and being the cost function. From the video, we can infer which variables belong in , with several examples below.
- Family size, family size can enter the income function (as a benefit), as larger households have more labor to deploy and earn income. It can also be argued that family size can be seen as a cost, with larger households finding it more costly to move.
- Ownership of a car/distance to either location, households owning a vehicle would find it easier to overcome distance costs associated with moving to either region. This would likely enter the net income equation as a cost variable, with longer distance moves incurring higher costs, but households with a vehicle may find it much easier to move further distances.
- Education can be a factor to consider. More education individuals/households maybe more productive and would likely enter the income function. Or it can enter the cost function as an opportunity cost if children are in school and not working the fields.
- The interviewer asks Charles Schuman, President of the American Farm Labor Bureau (AFBF; 39:25), why the AFBF opposes federal legislation to protect farm workers. He also discusses this with Senator Williams, Chair of Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. What is the case for federal versus state farm worker welfare legislation in the context of your linked labor-market model? (Hint: Imagine your two farm labor markets being in different states.)
ANS: You should recognize there is a tradeoff between federal level legislation, which blankets all states, and state-level regulations that are more flexible.
Imagine the scenario above, where regions A & B are not integrated (meaning no labor migration between the two regions). The federal government passed a minimum wage law which requires farms to pay at least as the wage. This law has no effect on region A, which already has a higher wage level, but kills the labor market in region B, where no employer is willing to hire at the new minimum wage.
Alternatively, should a certain state pass agricultural labor welfare laws, it might attract migrants from other states, reducing the labor supply available in neighboring regions.
- Murrow says (29:20) “the best hope for the future of the migrants lies in the education of their children.” How would expanded educational opportunities for migrant farmworker children affect the farm labor markets depicted in your figures—in the short run and in the long run? How would an increase in schooling affect farm labor-supply decisions depicted in your mover-stayer model? Based on your analysis, is educating migrants’ children a solution to the migrant farm labor problem?
ANS: In the short-run, the effects maybe ambiguous. While providing children with education would likely reduce the amount of labor each household is able to supply on the farm (recall the stories where people started working the fields at a young age), it may also increase the number of households participating in migratory Ag work. These benefits effectively make agricultural work more attractive (or less unattractive) and may result in increasing the total labor supply of migrant workers.
In the long-run the effects are likely to reduce the total amount of agricultural labor supply, as education allows the new generation to access more appealing professions.
In a scenario where region A passes a law allowing migrant ag laborers to send their children to school for free, this would likely show up in our mover-stayer model as a benefit. Alternatively, tuition fees can be specified as a cost and a reduction of tuition fees in region A reduces the cost of moving to A.
Whether education is a solution to the migrant farm labor “problem” depends on what one believes the problem to be. If the issue is poverty, more educational resources would likely help lift migrant households out of poverty in the long-run. This would also have the effect of reducing the labor supply (or make it more inelastic), thereby raising the wages of farm work.
- What is Murrows’ view on the impacts of immigration in western states’ farm labor markets? Use your model to show how immigration may alter the equilibrium outcome in two or more migration-linked farm labor markets. Do you agree with Murrow’s perception (22:17) of the impacts of immigration in the California farm labor market at the time the film aired? Are the impacts today different? For both of these questions, explain briefly why or why not.
ANS: At the time in which this documentary was made, a substantial proportion of the agricultural work force was domestic. The below graph illustrates a case in which an infinitely elastic supply of Bracero workers entering the US reduce the wages.
Note that with access to an infinite supply of labor, the new labor supply curve is traced by the think dotted line. This has two primary effects, it reduces domestic wages from to , and reduces the amount of domestic laborers hired from to .
The effects nowadays is likely different, as the proportion of agricultural laborers that are domestic is tiny. It remains the case that if a (new) group of migrants willing to work at a lower wage where to enter the US, it would put downward pressure on farm wages.
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