Abstract

The present study aims to examine the performance of the agricultural labor market in Birampur Upazila, Dinajpur district. A cluster of three villages (Katla, Shibpur, and Catra) in Birampur Upazila, Dinajpur district, was randomly selected for the study. Thirty respondents from each village were randomly selected from the cluster of villages. The pre-tested schedules were used to collect primary data from the selected agricultural labor households during 2022-23. The collected data were processed and analyzed by using various statistical and mathematical tools. The frequency of labor-credit interlocking was much higher than that of labor-land interlocking. More than half of the laborers had borrowed money from their employers. There was no definite rate of interest on the money loaned by the employers. However, the employers recovered a very high implicit rate of interest through a large number of small jobs. The labor-land interlocking, however, was yet another form of wage labor, since all the inputs were provided by the landowners. It ranged from 13 to 17 percent. However, the average wage/day earned in this system was slightly higher (TK. 480-500) than the average wage rate in the casual labor system. Family size, family income, family socioeconomic status, and age significantly affected the probability that an agricultural labor household entered into interlocked arrangements.