The impact of climate variability on agricultural employment in Mexico from 1980–2017

rural sector [46]. This context is particularly pertinent considering that approximately 26 mil- lion people in rural regions depend directly or indirectly on agrarian occupations [20, 47]. 2.1.3 Employment definition. Employment, as defined by INEGI [48], refers to any situa- tion in which individuals, regardless of their income level, engage in activities under the assumption that there is demand for their goods or services. This includes agricultural employ- ment, which covers both seasonal workers hired to prepare the land and those involved in year-round food production through crops or livestock. 2.2 Datasets 2.2.1 Precipitation. To identify climate variability in Mexico, annual precipitation data at the national level were obtained from the Climate Research Unit [49]. The technique used for data analysis involved calculating the average annual and quarterly precipitation for the entire period, as well as the annual anomalies, defined as the differences between the precipitation of each year and the average of the entire period (1980–2017). 2.2.2 Employment. We used employment data from three databases generated by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI): the Demographic Retrospective Survey (EDER), the National Occupation and Employment Survey (ENOE), and the National Employment Survey (ENE). The EDER is a longitudinal study created by INEGI and other academic institutions. The purpose of this survey is to collect longitudinal data that summarizes the life history of individ-

uals, focusing on various sociodemographic processes such as migration, education, employ- ment, fertility, mortality and more [50]. There are three EDER surveys; conducted in 1998, 2011 and 2017 [51]. In this research, we used the EDER 2017, which, unlike the previous sur- veys, provides representative information at the national, urban, and rural levels [51], encom- passing 32,000 household interviews. The methodological strategy of EDER 2017 consists of recording various events that occurred at least once per year in their lifespan, placing them both in historical time and in lifetime [51]. In other words, the survey reconstructs a person’s life based on the information provided, aligning it with the individual’s age and the calendar years. It is worth mentioning that the information available is about the life history of women and men born between 1962 and 1997. The ENOE is a quarterly survey aimed at obtaining statistical information on the occupa- tional characteristics of the population aged 15 years and older at a national scale, as well as demographic and economic variables for labor force analysis [52]. A key feature of the ENOE is its rotating panel structure, where each individual is surveyed five times before being replaced [53]. In other words, the ENOE is a continuous survey designed to yield quarterly results at the national, state, and city levels, including 36 self-represented cities [53]. It includes two forms: the Sociodemographic Questionnaire and the Occupation and Employment Ques-

tionnaire [52]. The first form serves to identify household members, recording their sex, age, education level, and other basic details, irrespective of their engagement in economic activities [52]. The second form categorizes the working-age population into two groups: the Economi- cally Active Population and the Non-Economically Active Population [52]. The total sampled population was 150,000 households per quarter. The ENE was conducted in Mexico from 1988 to 2004 and is the precursor of the ENOE. The survey aimed to establish a statistical information base on national-level occupational characteristics of the population, along with other demographic and economic variables, to facilitate in-depth labor analysis [54]. A notable feature of this survey is its temporal evolution: initially conducted biannually, then annually, and, starting in 2000, continuously with quar- terly results publication, leading to the development of the ENOE [55]. Another characteristic PLOS ONE Agrarian abandonment and extreme events PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313891 February 10, 2025 4 / 22