Incidence and Determinants of Nonfishing Employment among Fishermen: Case Study of the State of Malacca, Malaysia

Abstract

"Restriction or reduction of fishing effort is a universal prescription for an overexploited fishery. Conceivably the approach taken ranges from taking fishermen out of fishing completely to developing alternative sources of income for fishermen. The former approach imposes drastic changes on fishermen. The latter approach promises better prospects for success as fishermen are not divorced abruptly from their connections to the sea. Furthermore there is a strong subsistence component in most traditional small-scale fisheries which implies fishing communities will be deprived of an important source of protein food if they are prohibited from fishing.

"This paper attempts to look at the incidence and nature of nonfishing employment and explore the main determinants of fishermen participation in these nonfishing activities. The study is focused on fishermen in the state of Malacca and is based on data collected from a survey of 285 respondents in early 1992.

"The incidence of nonfishing employment is high (40%) in terms of numbers of fishermen having nonfishing employment and in terms of contribution of nonfishing to total income (38%). The importance of nonfishing income in improving income distribution, as evidenced by the Gini coefficient is not supported by this set of data. The main factors affecting participation examined are age, income from fishing, educational level, family size, and distance from town center. The influence of these factors on participation in nonfishing employment are examined via the logit and probit regression procedures."