Moonlighting Farmers: Factors Associated with Secondary Job Holding in the Agricultural Sector of Sri Lanka

The highest rate of Secondary job holding (moonlighting) was recorded among two groups in Sri Lanka, including professionals and agricultural workers, although their objectives of moonlighting are different. Sri Lanka has been keeping a record of the lowest productivity in the agricultural sector for years with a higher rate of underemployment and hidden unemployment. Moonlighting is a way to enhance maximum utilization of labour in the sector and the main objective of this research is to identify the factors that affect the engagement in secondary jobs, among agricultural workers in Sri Lanka. This was further analyzed among the farmers for three specific crops, including paddy, vegetable and tea. A total of 8,165 agricultural workers from the Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey (LFS) 2018, were used for this study. The Logit regression models were used to identify the factors to engage in secondary jobs for agricultural workers in Sri Lanka. The study concluded that the income and number of hours of the main jobs, being a female, being unmarried, not being a Sinhalese, living in non-Western provinces, size of the household, and engaging in agricultural activities during the second and third quarters have significant relationships on the choice of holding secondary jobs among agricultural work-ers. Engagement in secondary jobs increases with age at a decreasing rate. The study proposes policies for the promotion of moon-lighting to utilize the full capacity of Sri Lanka’s agricultural workers.