What you should know about this indicator
Historical estimates count the number of persons engaged in each sector, based on national historical statistics. Recent estimates (from 1991) are ILO-modeled estimates published by the World Bank, based on employment of people aged 15 and over.
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More Data on Employment in Agriculture
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
Notes on our processing step for this indicator
This indicator combines two sources: recent estimates from the World Bank's World Development Indicators, and a compilation of historical sources built by Our World in Data, based on the dataset published by Herrendorf, Rogerson and Valentinyi (2014) and updated with the GGDC 10-Sector Database (January 2015 release) and the Swedish Historical National Accounts. For each country, World Bank data is used from its first available year onwards; historical sources only inform earlier years.
For recent years, the number is calculated as the World Bank's agricultural share of employment multiplied by the total number of employed people, which is derived in turn from the ILO-modeled employment-to-population ratio and the United Nations estimate of the population aged 15 and over.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Number of people employed in agriculture”, part of the following publication: Max Roser (2023) - “Employment in Agriculture”. Data adapted from ILO Modelled Estimates, via World Bank, United Nations, Herrendorf, Rogerson and Valentinyi, Timmer et al., Schön and Krantz. Retrieved from https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev:8789/20260518-083815/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.html [online resource] (archived on May 18, 2026).How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
ILO Modelled Estimates, via World Bank (2026) and other sources – with major processing by Our World in DataFull citation
ILO Modelled Estimates, via World Bank (2026); UN, World Population Prospects (2024); Herrendorf, Rogerson and Valentinyi (2014); Timmer et al. – GGDC 10-Sector Database 2014; Schön and Krantz (2025) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Number of people employed in agriculture” [dataset]. ILO Modelled Estimates, via World Bank, “World Development Indicators 125”; United Nations, “World Population Prospects”; United Nations, “World Population Prospects - Interim Update”; Herrendorf, Rogerson and Valentinyi, “Growth and Structural Transformation”; Timmer et al., “GGDC 10-Sector Database 2014 release, updated January 2015”; Schön and Krantz, “Swedish Historical National Accounts 2025 update” [original data]. Retrieved July 3, 2026 from https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev:8789/20260518-083815/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.html (archived on May 18, 2026).Download
Quick download
Download the data shown in this chart as a ZIP file containing a CSV file, metadata in JSON format, and a README. The CSV file can be opened in Excel, Google Sheets, and other data analysis tools.
Data API
Use these URLs to programmatically access this chart's data and configure your requests with the options below. Our documentation provides more information on how to use the API, and you can find a few code examples below.
Data URL (CSV format)
https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseMetadata URL (JSON format)
https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=falseExcel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests
# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})
# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()R
library(jsonlite)
# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")Stata
import delimited "https://data-structural-transformati.owid.pages.dev/grapher/number-of-people-employed-in-agriculture.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear