Earnings and Disposable Income of Farmers in Sweden, 1997-2012

This study presents a comprehensive analysis of farmers' income in Sweden. The results indicate that farm households in Sweden do well from a standard-of-living perspective, but that farming is still a low-paid occupation from a return-on-skills perspective. Nevertheless, farm earnings increased faster over the study period than earnings in the general population, owing equally to higher farm earnings for operators and higher off-farm earnings for their spouse. Since few female spouses make farm earnings, evaluating farm household earnings from mainly a household perspective fails to acknowledge the individual careers of farmer and spouse