Seasonality of employment and food security in rural sub-Saharan Africa
利用布基纳法索、马拉维和乌干达2020-2024年的高频电话调查面板数据，研究了农村劳动力从农业向非农部门的季节性转移如何影响全年粮食安全，发现非农工资就业通常能减少季节性粮食不安全，但在多季种植区农业工作与粮食安全关联更强。
Many rural households in sub-Saharan Africa rely on rainfed agriculture, meaning that harvests and incomes from farming are highly seasonal. This leads to recurring periods of food insecurity, commonly referred to as lean seasons. Off-farm employment may help mitigate seasonal food insecurity, but evidence on whether it actually does remains scarce. Using panel data from high-frequency phone surveys in Burkina Faso, Malawi, and Uganda, covering the period from 2020–2024, we examine seasonal labor reallocation and implications for food security throughout the year. We find that seasonal labor shifts from farming to off-farm sectors are associated with reduced seasonal food insecurity in most contexts, especially for off-farm wage employment. We also find that in regions where multiple cropping seasons are possible, work in farming is more strongly associated with food security than off-farm wage or self-employment. However, seasonal shifts from farming to other income-generating activities are not very large at the aggregate level, possibly due to lack of rural labor opportunities. These findings highlight that — depending on the context — improvements of opportunities for farming and off-farm employment are important to ensure year-round food security in rural sub-Saharan Africa.