The Pakistan Development Review Vol. XXVII, No.4 Part II (Winter 1988) Landlessness in Rural Areas of Pakistan and Policy Options: A Preliminary Investigation MOHAMMAD IRFAN and GHULAM MOHAMMAD ARIF* INTRODUCTION The quantification of landlessnessis a formidable task. Conceptual ambiguities involved in the classification of landlessness and data limitations compound the difficulties in the estimation. Landlessness, which is an elusive concept, tends to acquire interpretations which vary with the objectives, context and estimation procedures adopted in different research endeavours. The denotation and connota- tion of the concept of landlessness, the population of interest (or at risk) and the objectives of measurement therefore need to be spelt out very clearly for a meaning- ful and policy-relevant exercise. Identification of the state of landlessness using the criterion of ownership and access to land, has often been made. While the 'ownership' may be clear in certain contexts, that of 'access' needs further explanations in terms of the nature, extent and type of access. A related question, is the demarcation of the population or its subset whose landlessness is to be estimated: are all the inhabitants of an area or the ones who primarily depend on land for their livelihood be regarded as the relevant population. The dependence on land needs to be further specified whether the person is engagedin agricultural operations as worker or not. Poverty, income or employment have often been the underlying objectives of the measurement of the landlessness. It must be noted that operationalization of these objectives in terms of distinct measurable entity is problematic. Concepts of economic holdings, work units and subsistence holdings are well-known. In Pakistan various efforts have been made to estimate underemployment in rural areas by specifying the land needed for full employment f~r a person or family. Research studies conducted by J. J. Stern (1981), S. M. Naseem (1981), ILO(1978), and Akmal Hussain (1988), can be cited as few examples. It must be noted that the search for ideal types, such as economic holdings, have been subjected to criticism by Myrdal (1968) among others, because they are static in nature. Further- more, to the extent that the labour input per unit of land varies with the institutional *The authors are Chief of research and Staff Economist respectively, at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics, Islamabad. The authors are thankful to Mr Mohammad Rafique, Computer Programmer, for his computational work.