The Employment Effects of 1980 Price and Wage Policy in the Zimbabwe Maize and Tobacco Industries
In: African affairs: the journal of the Royal African Society, Band 81, Heft 322, S. 71-85
ISSN: 0001-9909
The central dilemma facing Zimbabwe's new government is the need to find a balance between improving the farm sector & the lot of peasants & wage earners, while maintaining confidence in the commercial, industrial, & agricultural sectors. Focus is on new minimum wage legislation introduced in July 1980. The tobacco & maize industries, which represent Zimbabwe's major crops, are analyzed in detail. The disparity between wage labor & peasant farmers has increased, but a fall in employment & an increase in productivity, capital investment, & management efficiency are predicted, along the patterns exhibited by other developing nations. Annual income of some families of farm laborers is forecast to fall because of decreased demand for the seasonal labor of women & children. Caution in minimum wage legislation is suggested, & the preferability of pricing policy underscored. 1 Table. C. Ornatowski.