Journal of Rural Development
Death of Male Farm Household Heads and Household Income: Evidence from Widowed Farm Women in Korea
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AuthorHeo, Seongyoon
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Publication Date2026.06.21
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Original
This study examines the causal impact of the death of male farm household heads on the income of widowed farm households using longitudinal data from the Korea Welfare Panel Study (2005–2023).
Motivated by the growing share of female single-person farm households resulting from spousal bereavement in Korea, the study combined Coarsened Exact Matching with an event-study framework and conducted robustness checks using heterogeneity-robust estimators proposed by Sun and Abraham (2021) and Gardner (2021).
The results indicated that the death of the male farm household head led to a permanent decline of approximately 25.9% in real current income and 35.4% in real agricultural income. The decline in agricultural income intensified over time, reaching approximately 57.3% nine years after the shock.
Further analysis revealed that transfer income declined, rather than increased, following the shock, suggesting that the buffering capacity of the current welfare system was limited. Moreover, despite
the loss of the male household head, the overall economic conditions of the surviving households did not deteriorate substantially relative to pre-shock levels. This economic stability may have weakened the surviving spouse’s incentive to supply agricultural labor, potentially serving as a complementary mechanism that contributed to the long-run decline in agricultural income.
These findings highlight the need to strengthen farm succession support, enhance the agricultural capabilities of widowed female farmers, and establish dedicated support systems for farm households that discontinue farming following spousal bereavement.
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