ABSTRACT
Having carried de-agrarianization as far as Japan, it is appropriate to see how useful the concept is in regard to modern Europe. Like Japan, but unlike Africa and much of Southeast Asia, Europe has a strong body of rural historiography, and this makes possible a long view. The two key elements of de-agrarianization, as discussed in Chapter 12 – supplementing agricultural incomes with earnings from other sources and rural out-migration – have been world-wide phenomena through most of the twentieth century. Yet the term de-agrarianization is rarely used to describe trends in developed countries, though we cite one of these rare instances below. Wilson and Rigg (2003) came closest in advocating that it be evaluated alongside currently used terms which we discuss later in this chapter. But an enthusiastic response is unlikely. The type of de-agrarianization reviewed in Africa and Southeast Asia happened in Europe at a time that is already history. In Chapter 6 we traced the rapid post-1945 decline in numbers of farmers and farm workers in Europe and the USA, a trend that had been going on since the late nineteenth century. Decline in farm numbers continues, but more slowly, and in most of Europe rural depopulation is now at an end.
