Labour Reconversion from the Agricultural Sector to Rural Tourism: Analysis of Rural Areas in Chile

The aim of this study is to analyse the likelihood of agricultural workers in rural areas converting to the tourism sector. Chile is used as a case study, drawing on the CASEN survey of 2017 to analyse differences between the northern, central, and southern regions of the country and construct a satellite account of tourism. A matching process was carried out within the data, and the estimation of a logit model was done to assess the probability of labour reconversion. The results indicate that an agricultural worker has a 12.8% probability of retraining. However, differences emerged when demographic characteristics were analysed; specifically, people with post-secondary education and women have a higher probability of retraining. These and other sociodemographic characteristics are important to explain potential labour reconversion towards tourism in rural areas, although differences arose between areas of the country. Therefore, homogeneous public policies that do not consider the specific characteristics of the territories within a country will be ineffective.

Automated summary

The study found differences in the probability of retraining towards tourism in rural areas of Chile, especially among those with higher education and women. Therefore, when formulating public policies aimed at promoting labor reconversion in rural areas, specific characteristics of different regions must be taken into consideration.