The Effect of Land Inheritance on Youth Migration and Employment Decisions in Rwanda

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Paper is very interesting and I sincerely applaud that five authors from different countries in Africa work on papers of this type. Congratulations. Hopefully in Europe we take example.

Therefore, changes in some parts of the paper are needed.

 

First, authors must use the Microsoft Word template available in the journal webpage for References chapter and for references in the text. Year position, bolds and font must be reviewed and some common mistakes and lacks have been found. References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text.

Page 5. I am not sure about the Microsoft Word template in footnotes. Author should review this aspect.

Fonts in Tables 9, 10 are different from the rest.

Authors should pay more attention to all these aspects because can led to a referee to rejected the paper without opportunities to rewrite it.

 

Introduction chapter must describe the object of study and the methodology and indexes used. In the same way, the structure of the paper and the main conclusions described in. Some of these topics are detailed at the end of 1.2.

On the other hand, the literature review describes some works related with different aspects of the topic. But in 1.2 other references according are included.

I propose authors to think about the possibility of eliminate the 1.2 and move the last paragraph of this point to 1.1, moving the rest of the point to 1.3. It is only a possibility.

Indistinctly, a literature review chapter include some of the main works of the topic. But it is striking that there is no reference to works published in journals, but Sosina, Stein (2014). It is difficult to think that there are no papes within this field of study; in general, not only in Rwanda or in Africa. Maybe the reality in other countries (Latin America or Asia) can help to understand the reality analysed in the paper. I am fully convinced of this.

On the other hand, no Discussion chapter is included. In this chapter, authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. This chapter need to be included before the Conclusions one.

In 2.2. Data source, authors define the five administrative district selected. But I can find the reasons of this decision. Surely it must be clarified.

In the Results chapter, I strongly recommend the use of robust indicators for each of the regressions (Fixed and random). This type of indicator solves the autocorrelation and heteroscedasticity problems that the model may have. This question is of vital importance for models in which the vast majority of the variables are dummy. We cannot ignore the high degree of dependency that this type of variable has on each other. Using robust indicators can partially solve this problem. I strongly recommend them. Authors can present both results (general and robust) and comment if there are any differences to point to.

In addition to the above, it is striking that the R2 of several of the regressions is really low. There should be some kind of mention that warns about the caution with some of the results of the work should be taken. As the authors know, with R2 above 0.6, we can speak of a certain rigor in the result of the regressions. But in the opposite case, with results below 0.4, it is important to point that the quantitative conclusions of the work should be taken with the necessary caution.

These conclusions are even more important when the vast majority of the variables of the study are qualitative and, consequently, any regression where all the explanatory variables are of this type, will yield results that must be taken with great caution.

 

I sincerely hope that these words serve to make work more rigorous. The paper is of great interest and I believe that the results highlighted should, with these changes, being published in Sustainability journal.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for taking your valuable time to review the first manuscript of the article.

Kindly find attached the reviewer report with responses to the comments suggested.

Best regards,

Patrick

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

I suggest only to better describe variables used in the models. Also the final model should included all list of variables.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for taking your valuable time to review the first manuscript of the article.

Kindly find attached the reviewer report with responses to the comments suggested.

Best regards,

Patrick

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Referee Report

“The effect of access to land on youth migration and employment decisions in Rwanda”

(Sustainability)

 

This paper uses 2010/11 and 2013/14 Integrated Household Living Conditions Surveys (EICVs) data to assesses the effect of access of land on youth migration and employment. African Union (AU) Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation (2014) pointed out that land policies should be focused on achieving agricultural transformation with equitable access to land and secure land rights. The two questionnaire surveys are held before and after the declaration, therefore this paper should provide important evidence of the factors on youth migration and employment decisions, and also the land policy effect in Rwanda.

 

Comments:

1. Between the two questionnaire surveys, Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation was adopted, and it is expected that Rwanda government would apply related policy measures. Those must have huge impact on the youth migration and employment decision. The author should explain the change of land policy in Rwanda between the year of two questionnaire surveys.

 

2. In section 1 introduction, the author introduces lots of researches about the effect of women access to land, even more than the researches about the effect of youth access to land. However, in empirical framework and results, the author didn’t discuss the effect of women access to land.

 

3. The sentences “The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. …… Section 4 concludes the paper with key recommendations.” should be placed in the last of Section 1.

 

4. As the author said, “The fixed-effects model analyzes the effect of model variables that vary over time”, equation (1) seems like a fixed time effect model. However, equation (1) defined delta_i as a vector for household fixed effect. The author should check it again.

 

5. In equation (1), the lower subscript h represents household. Then household fixed effect should be delta_h.

 

6. The model setting of the random effect in Equation (2), is not correct.

 

7. For the questions of 2010/11 and 2013/14 questionnaire, that related to the variables in this research, should be reported in appendix.

 

8. Some mistakes happened in Table 1.

• For each variable, in which status the dummy set to be unity or zero should be clearly described. For example, the variable “Migration”, that equal to 1 when youth is migrated (1=yes; 0=no), is well stated. The author should describe clearly for each variable.
• “Urban to rural migrant” and “rural to rural migrant” should be less than “rural migrant”. Why the means of these two variables are larger than that of “rural migrant”?
• The mean of dummy variables represents the proportion, so the mean of dummy variable should be less than 1. Some means of dummy variables, such as the Reason 1, 2 and 5 of economic migrant, Urban to rural migrant, etc., are larger than 1.
• There variables “Urban to rural migrant” and “rural to rural migrant” are reported twice, but the number and mean are different.  
• How do you define “child” and “youth”? The definition should be reported in the paper.
• How do you define “poor” and “non-poor”? The definition should be reported in the paper.
• The “Dependent youth in the household” should be included in “youth”. Why the mean of “Number of dependent youth in the household” is larger than “Number of youth”?
• For the variable “Is the youth child”, its description is not related to the variable.

 

9. The topic is “the effect of access to land on youth migration and employment decisions,” but equation (1) and (2) only investigate the impact of inheritance on migration or employment. “Purchase”, “gift”, “free use or loan” or “lease” are also the way to “access to land”, the author should consider it in the regression analysis.
10. The means of the dummy variables in Table 3 represent the proportion, but some of the values are larger than 1. Please check it.
11. In panel data analysis, we usually apply Hausman test to decide fixed or random effect model first, and then adopt the regression analysis. Therefore, there is no necessary to report Table 4 and Table 7.
12. From the first questionnaire to the second one, the increase of “urban to rural migrant” is quite close to the decrease of “rural to rural migrant”. And the sum of the means for “inheritance” and “free use or loan” of independent youth are also very close. It shows that there might be other factor impact on the youth migration and employment, such as youth’s skill. For example, urban youths, that migrant to rural area but not choose farm activities, may be resulted from lack of skill, instead of lack of access to land.

 

13. Since Malabo Declaration on Accelerated Agricultural Growth and Transformation was adopted between the two questionnaire surveys, the impact of Malabo Declaration could be analyzed. The author could include the interaction item of time dummy and land access in the equation.

 

14. In conclusion, there is no evidence for recommendation 4 to 6 in this paper.

 

 

Individual Evaluation:

Referee feels that the paper’s accomplishment is not modest enough.  The authors should revise their method and provide more explanations for the background, modelling and policy implications. Writing the details through the entire paper is needed.  

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for taking your valuable time to review the first manuscript of the article.

Kindly find attached the reviewer report with responses to the comments suggested.

Best regards,

Patrick

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I would like to congratulate the authors for the great effort they have made. The work has gained a lot in rigor and I think it is appropriate to be published in the journal.

Therefore, there are some minor mistakes that must be changed.

References are numbered in References chapter in alphabetical order. It is NOT CORRECT.

As it is describe in the Instructions for Authors, references must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript.

For example, first paragraph of the text:

“Land is a valuable asset for improving livelihoods and alleviating poverty among vulnerable groups such as women and youth, especially those residing in rural areas [2, 14, 16]. Access to land has a direct linkage with poverty reduction and improving food and nutrition security [42]. Land remains the main source of livelihood for about 62% of rural people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) [2] and 61.3% in Rwanda [37]. However, land is becoming a scarce resource due to rapid population growth [26]. The continuous growth in rural population and families is typically related to a lack of access to agricultural land for family descendants, especially youth [23].”

Must be redacted as it follows:

“Land is a valuable asset for improving livelihoods and alleviating poverty among vulnerable groups such as women and youth, especially those residing in rural areas [1, 2, 3]. Access to land has a direct linkage with poverty reduction and improving food and nutrition security [4]. Land remains the main source of livelihood for about 62% of rural people in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) [1] and 61.3% in Rwanda [5]. However, land is becoming a scarce resource due to rapid population growth [6]. The continuous growth in rural population and families is typically related to a lack of access to agricultural land for family descendants, especially youth [7].”

And so on in the rest of the paper.

Then reorder the References chapter in order of appearance in the text.

Authors must use the Microsoft Word template available in the journal webpage for References chapter spacing. I highly recommended to copy and paste the current chapter directly in the Microsoft Word template available and the adapting all the references, always, in order of appearance in the text, never in alphabetical order.

 

Author Response

Dear Sir/ Madam Once again, we thank you for additional comments suggested to improve our manuscript. We attach the report for your consideration. Best regards, Patrick

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

1. There is a typo in equation (1). The author should describe i, h, t correctly, and how the author stacked the panel data by i, h, t.
2. In section 2.2, the author uses 1 page to describe the “Hausman test,” which test is quite common. There is no need to use so much space, and this paragraph could be shortened.
3. In table 2, the mean differences in land inheritance are not correct.
4. In section 3.4, the author should describe how you did the robustness test. What are the differences between general results and robust results in table 5 and table 7?

Author Response

Dear Sir/ Madam

Once again, we thank you for additional comments suggested to improve our manuscript. We attach the report for your consideration. Best regards, Patrick 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 3 Report

The descriptions of the lower case i and h in equation (1) are still not clear.

The authors should explain it.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer

Thank you for additional comment....

Attached is the report for your consideration

Author Response File: Author Response.docx