Work Effort, Socio-Economic Situation and Problems of Farming Families in the Federal Republic of Germany 1980

Living conditions of farming families and attitude of company owners to
questions of agricultural policy.

Topics: size of agricultural area and property proportion; size of
forest possession. The following questions were posed to those farming
as a second occupation: length of second occupation farming of the
company; judgement on time of conversion from primary to second
occupation; company conversions conducted or planned; personal feeling
of identity as employee or as farmer; perceived stress from farming the
agricultural company; reasons for remaining in farming; use of money
from income outside the company in the agricultural company; judgement
on the significance of income from outside the company for one´s
livelihood; prospects of promotion in the primary occupation; fear of
unemployment.

To all respondents: contributions to the agricultural retirement fund;
size of residential and arable land farmed; possibility of leasing new
areas; judgement on current amount of land of the company; desired
company expansion; use of arable land; cultivation of intensive
cultures; personal participation and perceived problems in co-operative
use of machines; giving work to sub-contractors; direkt sales of
agricultural products to consumers; types of animals maintained;
average annual milk production per cow; level of daily milk production
in the company; intended changes in livestock maintenance in the next
five years; necessary changes regarding stables, working quarters,
technical equipment and residential building; planned future continued
running of the company as primary or second occupation; planned
expansion of an activity outside of the company; assumed reasons for
not taking up a non-agricultural activity; importance of selected areas
of life; advantages and disadvantages of the agricultural occupation;
satisfaction with occupation; fair earnings; assumed income development
in the next few years; feeling of obligation to maintain the farm for
the next generation; judgement on necessity of concentration processes
in agriculture; certainty of the existence of the company; regular
annual vacation trips; importance of vacation; contacts with
agricultural advice centers or reasons for lack of contacts; income
from rent and lease; level of personal lease payments; possession of an
agricultural secondary business (e.g. distillery, sawmill or mill) as
well as income from this secondary business; employment of seasonal
workers or day laborers and number of working hours by these persons;
financial expenses for parents retired from farming or inheritance
settlements; annual level of these payments; actual and ideal number of
children; educational goals; parents retired from farming in one´s
family; payments made for the retired parents.

Those farming as primary occupation were interviewed as follows:
accounting or company records; importance of accounting; attitude to
government selection in promotion of agricultural companies;
development ability of the company; attitude to direct financial
subsidies instead of price support measures; ties to company;
willingness to sacrifice some income for the benefit of agricultural
activity; readiness to take out a loan; minimum monthly income
necessary for the family; utilization of medium and long-term funds;
level of annual debt payments; interest in taking up work outside of
agriculture; personal chances in the job market.

Beyond this detailed information was collected on all persons
belonging to the company and their work performance in the company.

Demography: position of respondent regarding company manager; year of
birth; sex; number of children; school education; agricultural
training; non-agricultural training; occupational position in activity
outside of work; monthly net income from activity outside of work
(classified); other sources of income.

Interviewer rating: presence of third persons during interview;
willingness of respondent to cooperate; residential area.

Also encoded was: city code.