Livelihood Strategies in Rural South Africa: Implications for Poverty Reduction

Zerihun Gudeta Alemu

No 125411, 2012 Conference, August 18-24, 2012, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil from International Association of Agricultural Economists

Abstract: This paper has the objective of identifying dominant livelihood strategies in rural South Africa. It differs from previous studies done for South Africa in that it analyses a recent large household survey; classifies livelihood strategies into four broad and eight specific livelihood strategy groups and matches them with welfare strata of rural households; and analyzes socio-economic constraints poor households face to enter into high return livelihood strategies. Two approaches are applied to achieve these objectives -stochastic dominance test and multinomial logistic regression. It finds that households that generate income from wage employment in non-farm and farm activities are better off than other households. Analysis of the socio-economic characteristics of rural households also reveals that age, labour endowment, education, and community characteristics in terms of access to basic infrastructure are some of the barriers that poor households in rural areas face to enter into high-return livelihood strategies.

Keywords: Community/Rural/Urban; Development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 24
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-agr
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:iaae12:125411

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.125411

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