Rural Non-Farm Economy

The contribution of non-farm activities to generation of employment and growth of rural incomes in the early stages of development is well recognised in the development literature. For Bangladesh, available official statistics do not allow an analysis of the structure and growth of rural non-farm economy, as the data is not available separately for rural and urban areas. This paper uses data available from two national level sample surveys of rural household to analyse the change in the structure of the rural non-farm economy and its contribution to the growth and distribution of rural incomes in Bangladesh during the 1990s.