Bibliometric Analysis on Rural Non-farm Sector: Study on Scopus Database During 1990-2022

Abstract

The rural non-farm sector is increasingly playing an essential role in the development of rural areas around the world. Specifically, as agriculture in the region's contribution to the economy declines, the rural non-farm sector will need to increasingly become a significant provider of employment and income to many rural people. However, rural non-farm employment is not a substitute for employment in agriculture but rather an additional measure. Promoting the rural non-farm sector should be undertaken within the border context of rural development. Bibliometric analysis is a rare contribution to the field of Rural Non-Farm research. Therefore, a bibliometric analysis of the publications may provide a direction for future research and a detailed topic analysis. The global literature about Rural Non-Farm published between 1990 and 2022 was scanned from the Scopus database. The keywords used to get the relevant publications are given as "Rural" AND "Non-Farm" in the search criteria "Article Title, Abstract, Keyword". A total of 1135 papers were chosen for this study to conduct bibliometric analysis. VOSviewer is used to carry out the bibliometric analysis. VOS viewer software was used to create maps based on network data of scientific publications displaying relationships among researchers, countries, and scientific journals. Author keywords are used to explore the co-occurrence of different terms connected to rural non-farm research. Results reveal close and robust interconnections between the top authors, suggesting a solid research link. "Poverty", "Agriculture" "Rural Development", and "non-farm employment" are the keywords the authors most repeatedly use. "World Development" Journal has the highest number of citations (2607) with a total link strength of 172. The United States and India have the highest number of articles in the Rural Non-Farm Sector. This study on Rural Non-Farm would help future researchers gain significant insights into the current status of existing literature and assist in conducting a qualitative literature review.