This paper reviews and synthesizes findings from scholarly work on linkages among rural household demographics, livelihoods and the environment. Using the livelihood approach as an organizing framework, we examine evidence on the multiple pathways linking environmental variables and the following demographic variables: fertility, migration, morbidity and mortality, and lifecycles. Although the review draws on studies from the entire developing world, we find the majority of micro-level studies have been conducted in either marginal (mountainous or arid) or frontier environments, especially Amazonia. Though the linkages are mediated by many complex and often context-specific factors, there is strong evidence that dependence on natural resources intensifies when households lose human and social capital through adult morbidity and mortality, and qualified evidence for the influence of environmental factors on household decision-making regarding fertility and migration. Two decades of research on lifecycles and land-cover change at the farm level have yielded a number of insights about how households make use of different land-use and natural resource management strategies at different stages. A thread running throughout the review is the Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access

This paper presents an historical analysis (1974–97) of associations between land‐cover change and socio‐economic factors for three villages in a former bantustan region of South Africa. The notion of social–ecological systems is used as the conceptual framework for this analysis, in which the former bantustan region of Bushbuckridge is posited as a cultural landscape. The local landscape showed distinctive modifications over the study period, broad trends including the growth of human settlements and the decrease in woodland cover. However, changes were not uniform across sites, and the direction and magnitude of changes in land cover were often nonlinear and site‐specific. Analysis of associations between biophysical and socio‐economic changes at different scales revealed a range of important interacting forces such as population growth, drought, shortages of land, grazing and wood resources, weakening institutional governance of natural resources, and the diversification of livelihood strategies, including the sale of fuelwood, concurrent with declining employment security and cattle ownership. Evidence suggests a possible erosion of resilience in these social–ecological systems at various scales, with important implications for socio‐economic development and sustainable resource management.

There is currently a lack of research on the association between demographic dynamics and household use of natural resources in rural Africa. Such work is important because in rural Africa natural resources buffer households against shocks, offering both sustenance and income-generating potential. Aims: The article focuses on adult mortality as a household shock, examining use of local environmental resources as related to household dietary needs. Methods: The authors analyze two sources of data collected during May—December 2004 in the MRC/Wits Rural Public Health and Health Transitions Research Unit (Agincourt) in rural South Africa. Quantitative analyses use survey data from 240 households, stratified by adult mortality experience. Qualitative data are based on 31 interviews with members of households having recently experienced adult mortality. Results: The interviews provide insight into a variety of household-level mortality impacts and also suggest the importance of proximate resources in the maintenance of food security following the loss of an adult household member. Quantitatively, there are significant differences, both in patterns of usage of the natural environment and in levels of food security, between households that have lost an adult and those that have not. The association between mortality and household use of local environmental resources is further shaped by the gender of the deceased and the time elapsed since the death. Conclusions: Adult mortality, particularly the death of a male wage-earner, affects household food security. Time allocation is affected as resource collection responsibilities shift, and wild foods may substitute for previously purchased goods.

Rural households across the globe engage in both migration and natural resource use as components of livelihood strategies designed to meet household needs. Yet, migration scholars have only recently begun to regularly integrate environmental factors into empirical modelling efforts. To examine the migration‐environment association in rural South Africa, we use vegetation measures derived from satellite imagery combined with detailed demographic data from over 9000 households at the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance Site. Results reveal that household‐level temporary migration is associated with higher levels of local natural capital, although no such association exists for permanent migration. Further, more advantaged households exhibit a stronger association between migration‐environment, in‐line with the ‘environmental capital’ hypothesis, suggesting that natural resource availability can facilitate household income diversification. We argue that a focus on migration's environmental aspects is especially timely in the contemporary era of climate change and that natural capital availability and variability represent critical pieces of the empirical migration puzzle, especially regarding cyclical livelihood migration. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.