Study of employment potential of agricultural sector in rural and urbansectors: Case study of Khorasan Razavi province

Identification of economic sectors with employment potential for future planning is important. The main objective of this paper is to study employment potential of agricultural sector in rural and urban economies with respect to gender in Khorasan Razavi province in Iran. For this purpose, we used input-output table of Khorasan Razvi Province that was updated with RAS method. The results showed that agricultural sector was in second place with respect to employment elasticity index and power and sensitivity dispersion indices which implied the existence of backward and forward linkages, in spite of the fact that agricultural sector was in first place with respect to direct employment. Employment elasticity for men and women in agricultural sector of rural areas were 0.397 and 0.399 and dispersion power indices were 4.6 and 5.7 and sensitivity of dispersion indices were 5.87 and 7.34 respectively. It is concluded that agricultural sector had high potential in affecting on other economic sectors especially in rural areas.