THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF COMMITMENT AND SATISFACTION WITH FARM AND NONFARM WORK

The commitment to farm has been regarded as dependent primarily on the farm's financial viability, from which standpoint submarginal and par t-time farms continue to survive only because of income derived from a nonfarm job. The significance of the relative conditions and rewards of farm and nonfarm work for the satisfactions and relative commitment s to different jobs, although often recognized, have been rarely analy zed. This study examines hypotheses that satisfaction with, and commit ments to, farm and to nonfarm work are socially constructed from the i nstitutional and organizational conditions of work. Analysis of data f rom a male, part-time, farmer sample reveals that commitment to, and s atisfaction with, farming is primarily contingent on the intrinsically rewarding aspects of both farm and nonfarm work. Satisfaction with fa nning is primarily dependent on the intrinsic rewards of farming activ ity alone, but this relationship is enhanced as the status of the part -time farmer's nonfarm job rises. As is typical of ''hobby farms,'' fa rm performance measures-gross sales and net farm income-are less impor tant to the fanning commitments of part-time than of farmers in genera l. Part-time farmers' satisfactions with, and commitments to, their no nfarm jobs are constrained by the intrinsic rewards derived from fanni ng even as they are strengthened by the intrinsic and economic rewards of the nonfarm job. The spouse's involvement in farming, or lack of i t, as well as the farmer's ape and education moderate his commitment t o farming, thereby enhancing his commitment to the nonfarm job. (C) 19 95 Academic Press, Inc.