Family Composition and Off-Farm Participation Decisions in Israeli Farm Households

This article studies the relationship between the off-farm participation behavior of farm operators and their spouses and the demographic composition of the household. I focus on farm families without parents, siblings or partners, and examine the effects of the existence of elderly children of the farm couple. I find that both the father and the mother tend to reduce their participation in off-farm work as the number of elderly children rises. This result holds even after controlling for observed characteristics. I also find that the effect of elderly children stems from considerations related to both farm production and household production.