The limits of livelihood diversification and sustainable household well-being, evidence from China

Abstract

Diversification of household livelihood activities has become an important pillar of rural devel- opment strategies for improving living standards and household well-being (HWB). Yet di- versification’s relationship with rural development has not been assessed in working landscapes for households that span a range of HWB levels, which has important implications for sustainable rural transitions and resource use. This paper examines the role of livelihood diversification on HWB. We use a novel dataset from northeast China to develop a quantitative index that reflects sustainable livelihoods derived from principles laid out in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which we refer to as an index of sustainable household well-being (SHWB). We assess the role of diversification against other factors that relate to SHWB, and examine non-linearities in these relationships though quantile regression methods. While past work has shown how diversification can improve SHWB outcomes for low-resource communities, here we test the limits of diversi- fication as a household poverty reduction strategy. Our analysis shows that livelihood diversifi- cation is associated with improvements in SHWB for households with low and medium levels of wellbeing (<50th percentile in our sample). At higher levels of SHWB, education and income have much greater influence. Our results are robust to alternate measures of well-being and diversification metrics, and have implications for sustainable livelihood policy and improving household well-being. Supporting and encouraging livelihood diversification should play a sig- nificant role in poverty reduction strategies for the poorest of households, but with increased levels of market integration and regional development, specialization may be appropriate.

Publication
Environmental Development, 43, 100736
Brian E Robinson
Brian E Robinson
Associate Professor

My research interests include land systems, social-ecological policy, and statistics.