Rural households’ livelihood responses to industry-based poverty alleviation as a sustainable route out of poverty

doi:10.1016/j.regsus.2020.07.002

Abstract

Abstract:

Industrialization is one way to achieve a sustainable route out of poverty. During the implementation of industry-based poverty alleviation projects, rural households’ livelihood responses to change are crucial. A stronger livelihood response is conducive to multidimensional poverty relief due to industry-based poverty alleviation projects. Effective poverty alleviation can also stimulate stronger household responses. There is a positive cycle between livelihood response and multidimensional poverty relief effects that can help achieve sustainable poverty alleviation goals. Using a synergistic perspective on the relationship between “people-industry-land”, this paper explains the poverty alleviation logic connecting livelihood response, multidimensional poverty relief, and sustainable routes out of poverty by constructing a four-dimensional livelihood response measurement system with three elements of intensity. We analyzed survey data collected from 2363 households from 4 sample counties in 4 contiguous poverty-stricken areas, and measured and compared the characteristics of rural households’ livelihood responses and the factors influencing poverty alleviation projects. Rural households’ livelihood responses in four sample counties were moderate. The four dimensions of responses were ranked as livelihood strategy response, livelihood space response, livelihood output response, and livelihood capital response. The three intensities indicated that the perception and willingness elements of livelihood response were very similar, but there was a big gap between those elements and livelihood response actions. At the group level, poor households had higher and more consistent livelihood response than non-poor households. External environment factors (such as location, industry type, village organizational ability, and village atmosphere) and internal family factors (such as resource endowment, income sources, health, education, labor quantity, policy trust, credit availability, and social networks) had a significant impact on households’ livelihood response. However, this impact varied across different dimensions and had different intensities. This paper proposes a multidimensional poverty relief mechanism and suggests sustainable routes out of poverty.

Key words: Industry-based poverty alleviation, Livelihood response, Poverty relief mechanism, Sustainable route out of poverty, Sustainable livelihood framework, Livelihood response index

Jianjun Ding, Zhang Wang, Yanhong Liu, Fangwei Yu. Rural households’ livelihood responses to industry-based poverty alleviation as a sustainable route out of poverty[J]. Regional Sustainability, 2020, 1(1): 68-81.

Figures/Tables 11

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

Table 1

Table 2

Fig. 3.

Table 3

Fig. 4.

Table 4

Fig. 5.

Table 5

Variable settings of external environmental factors and internal family factors in this study"

Factor	Dummy variable	Corresponding description	Factor	Dummy variable	Corresponding description
Location	R group	More than 2.0 h to the nearest town	Age structure	R group	There are children under 14 years old and elderly over 60 years old
	dlqw1	Within 0.5 h to the nearest town		nljg1	There are children under 14 years old
	dlqw2	About 0.5-1.0 h to the nearest town		nljg2	There are elderly over 60 years old
	dlqw3	About 1.0-2.0 h to the nearest town		nljg3	Everyone in the family is 14-60 years old
Industry type	R group	Planting and forestry	Health	R group	Healthy
	fpcy1	Aquaculture industry	Health	jkzk	Someone has a chronic disease
	fpcy2	Tourism industry	Education level	R group	Primary school and below
	fpcy3	Processing industry		jycd1	Junior high school
	fpcy4	Small-scale mixed industry		jycd2	High school
Village organizational capacity	R group	Weak ability and unfair		jycd3	Vocational education or undergraduate
	jcnl1	Ability and fair		jycd4	Postgraduate and above
	jcnl2	Average ability and fair	Labor force quantity	R group	0
	jcnl3	Ability and unfair		ldls1	1
Village atmosphere	R group	Bad atmosphere		ldls2	2-3
	xcfq1	Good atmosphere		ldls3	≥3
	xcfq2	General atmosphere	Policy trust	R group	Neither join new rural cooperative medical system nor new rural social security
	xcfq3	Poor atmosphere		zcxr1	Join new rural cooperative medical system
Status of poor	R group	Non-poor households		zcxr2	Join new rural social security
Status of poor	poor	Poor households		zcxr3	Participate in both
Resource endowment	R group	Low quantity and poor quality	Credit availability	R group	Difficult
	zybf1	Moderate quantity and quality		xdkd1	Easy
	zybf2	Large quantity and poor quality or small quantity and good quality		xdkd2	Relatively easy
	zybf3	Large quantity and good quality		xdkd3	Moderate
Income source	R group	Other		xdkd4	Relatively difficult
	srly1	Agricultural income	Social network	R group	No relatives or friends are poverty alleviation workers
	srly2	Employment income		shwl1	Relatives and friends are poverty alleviation workers and contact frequently
	srly3	Business income		shwl2	Relatives and friends are poverty alleviation workers but contact seldom
	srly4	Government transfer income		shwl3	Relatives and friends are poverty alleviation workers but do not contact at all

Table 5

Table 6

Regression results of external environmental factors and internal family factors in this study"

Factor	Dummy variable	Model 1 (LHR)	Model 2 (LHR_c)	Model 3 (LHR_w)	Model 4 (LHR_p)	Model 5 (LHR_s)
Location	dlqw1	0.1695^*	0.3513^***	0.1509	0.1514	0.0470
	dlqw2	0.2292^**	0.3427^***	0.1516	0.2900^***	0.1280
	dlqw3	0.2358^**	0.2761^**	0.2337^*	0.2628^**	0.1681
Industry type	fpcy1	-0.0420	0.0254	-0.0528	-0.0636	-0.0651
	fpcy2	-0.4055^***	-0.2143^*	-0.6312^***	-0.4485^***	-0.3006^*
	fpcy3	0.0260	0.0071	-0.0786	0.2367^**	-0.1157
	fpcy4	-0.1087^***	0.1251^***	-0.2457^***	-0.3085^***	0.0656^*
Village Organizational ability	jcnl1	0.5439^***	0.4741^***	0.5125^***	0.4404^***	0.7667^***
	jcnl2	0.3394^***	0.3185^***	0.2935^***	0.2100^***	0.5646^***
	jcnl3	0.2101^***	0.1929^***	0.3010^***	0.1117	0.2578^***
Village atmosphere	xcfq1	0.2306^***	0.1752^**	0.1243	0.2059^*	0.4164^***
	xcfq2	0.1856^**	0.0271	0.1593	0.2273^**	0.3023^**
	xcfq3	0.0093	-0.1100	-0.1534	-0.0584	0.3621^**
Poverty	poor	0.0103	-0.0055	0.0075	-0.0078	0.0497
Resource endowment	zybf1	0.2125^***	0.1374^***	0.2146^***	0.3316^***	0.1297^***
	zybf2	0.0164	-0.0215	-0.0115	0.0580	0.0262
	zybf3	0.2455^***	0.1961^***	0.2213^***	0.3298^***	0.2092^***
Income source	srly1	0.1952^***	0.0396	0.3445^***	0.2799^***	0.0818
	srly2	0.0670	0.0087	0.0883	0.1011	0.0560
	srly3	0.0726	-0.0482	0.1467	0.1262	0.0410
	srly4	0.2465^***	0.1733^*	0.2235^*	0.2812^**	0.2919^**
Age structure	nljg1	0.0220	0.0459	0.0003	0.0304	0.0114
	nljg2	-0.0507^*	-0.0299	-0.0293	-0.0237	-0.1244^***
	nljg3	0.0380	0.0509	0.0434	0.0577	-0.0033
Health	jkzk	-0.0926^***	-0.0769^**	-0.1446^***	-0.1144^***	-0.0280
Education	jycd1	0.0699^*	0.0279	0.1018^**	0.0607	0.0875^*
	jycd2	0.1146^***	0.0505	0.1460^***	0.1061	0.1517^***
	jycd3	0.0877^**	0.0682	0.0758	0.0942	0.1090^**
	jycd4	-0.1030	-0.1247	-0.2786	-0.0912	0.0759
Labor quantity	ldls1	0.0316	0.0356	0.0274	0.0651	-0.0094
	ldls2	0.1758^**	0.1508^**	0.1829^**	0.2748^***	0.0679
	ldls3	0.0911	0.0967	0.1095	0.1771	-0.0391
Policy trust	zcxr1	0.2316^**	0.1966^**	-0.0677	0.3697^**	0.3876^***
	zcxr2	0.2023^*	0.1160	0.0063	0.4527^**	0.1623
	zcxr3	0.2418^**	0.0970	0.0535	0.4810^***	0.2609^**
Credit availability	xdkd1	0.5593^***	0.5458^***	0.5146^***	0.6813^***	0.4641^***
	xdkd2	0.3297^***	0.2801^***	0.3163^***	0.4326^***	0.2595^***
	xdkd3	0.2212^***	0.1524^***	0.2036^***	0.3156^***	0.1828^***
	xdkd4	0.0121	-0.0489	-0.0420	0.0688	0.0501
Social network	shwl1	0.2398^***	0.3331^***	0.2072^***	0.2930^***	0.1220^**
	shwl2	0.1425^***	0.2008^***	0.1511^***	0.1866^***	0.0265
	shwl3	-0.0107	0.0214	-0.0257	0.0153	-0.0570
Log likelihood		-1755.2980	-1929.5910	-2347.8870	-2660.5530	-2317.0110
Adjusted R²		0.4080	0.3477	0.3049	0.3272	0.3010
Probability (F-statistic)		0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000

Table 6

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County	Number of towns	Number of villages	Proportion of the number of villages in a certain county to the total number of villages (%)	Number of households	Proportion of the number of households in a certain county to the total number of households (%)	Number of poor households	Proportion of the number of poor households in a certain county to the total number of poor households (%)
County H	4	15	27.2727	640	27.0842	296	28.0569
County G	6	10	18.1818	480	20.3132	342	32.4171
County W	13	15	27.2727	609	25.7723	261	24.7393
County L	5	15	27.2727	634	26.8303	156	14.7867
Total	28	55	100.0000	2363	100.0000	1055	100.0000

Response dimension		Response intensity	Subjective weight	Objective weight	Comprehensive weight
Livelihood capital response	Natural capital	Perception	0.1000	0.1376	0.1184
		Willingness	0.3000	0.1657	0.2328
		Action	0.6000	0.6976	0.6488
		Capital dimension weight	0.2000	0.3465	0.2732
	Physical capital	Perception	0.1000	0.2755	0.1877
		Willingness	0.3000	0.3074	0.3037
		Action	0.6000	0.4172	0.5086
		Capital dimension weight	0.2000	0.1640	0.1820
	Human capital	Perception	0.1000	0.2683	0.1842
		Willingness	0.3000	0.2961	0.2980
		Action	0.6000	0.4356	0.5178
		Capital dimension weight	0.2000	0.1839	0.1919
	Social capital	Perception	0.1000	0.2855	0.1928
		Willingness	0.3000	0.3604	0.3302
		Action	0.6000	0.3540	0.4770
		Capital dimension weight	0.2000	0.1210	0.1605
	Financial capital	Perception	0.1000	0.2715	0.1858
		Willingness	0.3000	0.3430	0.3215
		Action	0.6000	0.3855	0.4927
		Capital dimension weight	0.2000	0.1846	0.1923
		Dimension weight	0.2500	0.1852	0.2176
Livelihood strategy response		Perception	0.1000	0.2600	0.1800
		Willingness	0.3000	0.2238	0.2619
		Action	0.6000	0.5163	0.5581
		Dimension weight	0.2500	0.2292	0.2396
Livelihood output response		Perception	0.1000	0.2793	0.1897
		Willingness	0.3000	0.3038	0.3019
		Action	0.6000	0.4169	0.5085
		Dimension weight	0.2500	0.3520	0.3010
Livelihood space response		Perception	0.1000	0.2962	0.1981
		Willingness	0.3000	0.3088	0.3044
		Action	0.6000	0.3950	0.4975
		Dimension weight	0.2500	0.2336	0.2418

County	Livelihood capital response	Livelihood strategy response	Livelihood output response	Livelihood space response	Comprehensive livelihood response
H	3.5528±0.5572	3.5460±0.7170	3.1737±0.9114	3.7548±0.8853	3.4816±0.5948
G	3.5923±0.4836	4.0693±0.7372	3.8251±0.7249	4.2143±0.5746	3.9285±0.4652
W	4.6793±0.4552	4.7742±0.4739	4.6929±0.5474	4.7276±0.5036	4.7179±0.4269
L	3.6068±0.5626	4.3897±0.6145	4.1983±0.6311	3.7957±0.6249	3.9856±0.4741
All	3.9127±0.6840	4.1955±0.7910	3.9736±0.9177	4.1152±0.7785	4.0477±0.6670
County	Natural capital response	Physical capital response	Human capital response	Social capital response	Financial capital response
H	3.9470±0.9538	3.5559±0.9921	3.3074±0.9885	3.7437±0.8493	3.2529±0.7364
G	3.2742±1.0727	3.8398±0.7630	3.7808±0.7805	3.7857±0.7743	3.4875±0.8756
W	4.7408±0.5028	4.7369±0.5228	4.6944±0.5328	4.7177±0.4827	4.5819±0.7796
L	2.6371±0.9863	4.2424±0.8007	3.9522±0.7758	4.1483±0.6263	4.1679±0.7072
All	3.6556±1.2060	4.1096±0.9078	3.9388±0.9381	4.1155±0.7944	3.8965±0.9361

	Livelihood capital response				Livelihood strategy response					Livelihood output response
County	Perception	Willingness		Action	Perception		Willingness		Action	Perception		Willingness		Action
H	3.8548	3.6470		3.4091	3.8203		3.9250		3.2578	3.4719		3.3859		2.9344
G	3.6953	3.7900		3.5277	4.0771		4.2979		3.9708	3.8667		3.7333		3.8708
W	4.7028	4.6982		4.6617	4.8095		4.8046		4.7471	4.6847		4.7110		4.6864
L	4.1920	4.1768		3.2644	4.5300		4.7461		4.1940	4.2918		4.4353		4.0268
All	4.1561	4.1228		3.7696	4.3178		4.4477		4.0377	4.0846		4.0796		3.8692
County	Livelihood space response							Comprehensive livelihood response
County	Perception		Willingness		Action			Perception		Willingness			Action
H	3.9781		3.8031		3.6438			3.7552		3.6657			3.2832
G	4.1625		4.1000		4.3438			3.9535		3.9826			3.9283
W	4.7619		4.7438		4.7044			4.7381		4.7387			4.6998
L	3.8281		3.9842		3.6703			4.1965		4.3206			3.7783
All	4.1773		4.1545		4.0664			4.1785		4.1953			3.9356
County	Natural capital response				Physical capital response					Human capital response
County	Perception	Willingness		Action	Perception		Willingness		Action	Perception		Willingness		Action
H	4.4219	4.3125		3.6953	3.8266		3.6219		3.4109	3.6672		3.4078		3.1141
G	3.6188	4.2750		2.8563	3.8083		3.7396		3.9208	3.7792		3.6979		3.8354
W	4.8079	4.7865		4.7011	4.7865		4.7307		4.7241	4.7028		4.7274		4.6732
L	4.0442	3.8202		1.9527	4.4006		4.5237		4.0678	4.0899		4.2003		3.7965
All	4.2569	4.2950		3.3165	4.2243		4.1735		4.0292	4.0702		4.0195		3.8455
County	Social capital response							Financial capital response
County	Perception		Willingness			Action		Perception			Willingness		Action
H	3.9078		3.6719			3.7313		3.4719			3.2516		3.1594
G	3.7292		3.6854			3.8813		3.6042			3.3542		3.5354
W	4.7077		4.7143			4.7241		4.5928			4.6043		4.5632
L	4.2776		4.2319			4.0599		4.3249			4.5063		3.9558
All	4.1769		4.0935			4.1058		4.0165			3.9577		3.8113