Factors That Influence the Livelihood Resilience of Flood Control Project Resettlers: Evidence from the Lower Yellow River, China

Abstract

Land requisition and resettlement of migrants are two major parts of flood control projects. After a large land area was allocated for flood control projects, livelihood resilience of resettlers became a great challenge. In this paper, Puyang County, Taiqian County, and Fan County, Henan Province, China, are chosen for a household survey. An index system to assess farming households’ livelihood resilience is constructed. After that, regression analysis and variance analysis are adopted to examine influencing factors of resettlers’ livelihood resilience. Results suggest the following: (1) Livelihood resilience of resettled farming households is on the whole lower than that of non-resettled farming households; (2) Response to policies, family scale, livelihood strategy, and skill training are major influencing factors of resettled farming households’ livelihood resilience; (3) Compared with other types of farming households, livelihood resilience of farming households with land expropriated is significantly different. In order to enhance resettlers’ livelihood resilience, the government should expand the application scope of follow-up support policies of reservoir resettlement, enhance capability construction of resettlement management departments, strengthen support for resettlers’ employment, combine resettlement with rural revitalization strategy, and improve the social security system for flood control project resettlers.