東南アジアの経済発展と労働市場 : 観察事実と農工間労働移動理論の誤謬

Abstract

The purpose of the present paper is to raise an essential criticism on the dualistic development models of the Lewis-Ranis type. Specifically, their well-known conclusions that the rural labour force can be supplied "unlimitedly" to the industrial sector is not correct in the real situation of south-east Asian societies. First, much of the rural population seems to migrate from the village to the large towns, but their destination is not "modern industry" but "urban poverty." This urban poverty is called the "urban indigenous sector" in the present paper. With the 1970 data of Thailand, the author has tried to identify three sectors, namely, rural, urban indigenous and modern sectors. The urban indigenous sector is defined as having the following four characteristics. (1) It is a large town which is absorbing a huge amount of immigrants from the rural sector. (2) Geographically it includes the modern sector. (3) Most of the population, there, is engaged in "urban indigenous employment and self-employment." (4) The income-expenditure structure is a minimum subsistence structure. Using the characteristics cited above, the author has identified the Bangkok-Thon Buri population as the urban indigenous sector in Thailand. The net immigrations into Bangkok-Thomburi have been estimated. Second, the reason why people leave their village is far different from that which is explained by the model of the Lewis-Ranis type. People leave their village mostly because they lose their land, or lose the right to cultivate the land, and/or because they have pushed out from dependence on the land; in other words, they seldom leave their village only because they are on the minimum subsistence level. The present author has carried out several field surveys in Thailand. In the present paper some observations about Samkamphen, northern Thailand are offered to explain why people want, and do not want, to leave the rural sector.