ABSTRACT
Some years ago Stephen Brush wrote an article titled“The Myth of the Idle Peasant” (1977b). In this article, he argued that in the highland Peruvian community in which he conducted field research, there was full employment of the community population. Further, he argued that there was no unemployment or underemployment in any segment of the community. His argument was counter to economic and development theory at that time, which generally maintained that rural overpopulation had caused generalized underemployment in the Peruvian countryside. Since the publication of his article, other anthropologists have added to the debate over rural underemployment, putting to rest the myth that there is generalized rural underemployment (Netting 1993).
