Wage structure in the rubber estates in West Malaysia
Date
1971
Authors
Nijhar, Karnail Singh
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Abstract
Economic literature is full of general theoretical discussions
about the determination of wages, but there is, relatively speaking,
a dismal shortage of detailed factual studies or discussions about
wages in labour markets in the less developed economies. This study
on the Wage Structure in the Rubber Estates in West Malaysia tries to
fill a little part of this gap.
The study is divided into two parts. The first deals with
the findings of a sample survey conducted on about 500 workers. A
detailed description of the workers' earnings structure, at one point
of time, highlighted the importance of the union-management agreements
as a proximate determinant. This was supported by other information
on the low rate of mobility amongst the estate workers and the increasing
levels of unemployment amongst the estate population. This finding
raised questions on the role of unionisation over a period of time, as
distinct from that at a point of time, on the industry's wage levels
(and therefore on the industry's wage structure). It also raised
questions' on the influence of the Union's wage policy on the industry's
unemployment levels. These questions were examined in the second part
of the study. The examination confirmed the importance of the Union
in determining the wage levels (and therefore of the wage structure)
in the estates, but it rejected the probability that the Union was
chiefly responsible for the unemployment problem in the estates. A
summing-up chapter has been left out because this would merely repeat
materials included more appropriately elsewhere in the study.
Almost all the materials discussed in Part I are original.
These add on to the existing knowledge of Malaysia. Much of the time
spent in the field and in the analysis was necessarily taken up by this section. The materials in Part II are partly original and
partly secondary, but their relationship to the industry's wage and
unemployment levels has been attempted for the first time in an
academic study. The interpretation in Part I is fairly definitive, but
that in Part II is not as definitive mainly because of incomplete
information and because much more time and money than available would
have been required to collect this information. In the past, the lack
of published information and the almost insurmountable difficulties of
accessibility to primary data (for a single unofficial investigator)
have been amongst the main factors deterring research scholars from
pursuing the type of questions raised for Part II. Although these
difficulties still exist, it is considered preferable to discuss such
problems with whatever limited information is available than to wait
until more information can be obtained (if ever) for them to be
examined more scientifically.
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