Livelihood Adaptation of Rural Households under Livelihood Stress: Evidence from Sichuan Province, China

Abstract

The welfare of many poor and low-income rural households is vulnerable to earthquakes and secondary geological disasters. The academic literature, however, pays little attention to the livelihood pressure, adaptability, and livelihood strategies of these households. Based on the survey data of 327 rural households in the Wenchuan and Lushan earthquake-stricken areas in the Sichuan Province, the livelihood pressure, adaptability, and livelihood strategy characteristics of rural households were analyzed, and the disordered multi-classification logistic regression model was constructed to explore the correlation between the above-mentioned variables. The results show that: (1) Rural households face the greatest economic pressure and the least social pressure; rural households have the strongest adaptability in social capital and the lowest adaptability in financial capital. The proportion of rural households that chose the aid livelihood strategy was the highest, while the proportion of rural households that chose the adjustment livelihood strategy was the lowest. (2) Compared with the expanded livelihood strategy, (a) When the health pressure is higher, the rural households are more inclined to choose the expanded livelihood strategy, followed by the contractive livelihood strategy and, finally, the aid livelihood strategies; (b), the higher the physical capital, the more often the rural households tend to choose the expanded livelihood strategy compared to the adjustment livelihood strategy; (c), The higher the financial capital of farm households, the more they prefer contractive livelihood strategies compared to the expanded livelihood strategy and (d), compared with the aid livelihood strategy, rural households with greater economic pressure are more inclined to choose the expanded livelihood strategy.This study can provide a reference for the establishment of relevant policies related to the adaptation capacity of rural households in the earthquake hazard zone.

Impact of Environmental and Health Risks on Rural Households’ Sustainable Livelihoods: Evidence from China

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Can Trust Motivate Farmers to Purchase Natural Disaster Insurance? Evidence from Earthquake-Stricken Areas of Sichuan, China

“…For residents of some areas, natural disasters are inevitable. They cause huge losses that far exceed the residents' ability to bear [28][29][30][31]. As early as 1991, some scholars put forward theories related to behavioral insurance and risk aversion, and now these theories have been used maturely [32].…”

Determinants of People’s Secondary Hazards Risk Perception: A Case Study in Wenchuan Earthquake Disaster Areas of China

“…Existing studies have done extensive research on human risk perception of original natural hazards, but have mostly focused on developed countries (Lindell et al, 2016;Doyle et al, 2018), while risk perception of secondary hazards has been less studied, and a few scholars have explored the livelihood resilience of farm households in secondary hazard-prone areas (Yang et al, 2021). Therefore, the risk perceptions of residents may differ in researches comparing mountainous and non-mountainous areas and original and secondary hazards.…”