Magnitude and Determinants of Reverse Tenancy: A Study of Agriculturally Developed and Backward States

Abstract

The present study analyses the extent of reverse tenancy in terms of who leases in and who leases out land in agriculturally developed and backward states using unit-level National Sample Survey data from different rounds. There are three important findings of the study. First, reverse tenancy in terms of distribution of leased in and leased-out land among households of different size categories is more pronounced in agriculturally developed states while in agriculturally backward states, most of the leased in and leased-out land was accounted for by sub-marginal, marginal and small households. Second, in terms of concentration of leased in and leased-out land among households at different levels of ownership hierarchy, the tenancy relations in both the categories of states conform to the traditional variety where most of the leased-in land is concentrated among households that are at the bottom and middle levels and leased-out land among households that are at top different levels. Third, the results of the logit regression further show that variables such as household size, age of the head of family, education of the head of the family, self-employment in agriculture, ownership of livestock and land use affect the probability of medium and large households leasing in and sub-marginal, marginal and small households leasing out land though the nature of their effect, and statistical significance of the regression coefficients vary among agriculturally developed and backward states and also over the years.