Livelihood strategies, environmental dependency and rural poverty: the case of two villages in rural Mozambique

Abstract

This article attempts to explore the nexus between rural households’ environmental dependency, poverty and livelihood strategies. Households’ income from each livelihood activities formed the basis for categorizing households according to livelihood strategies. The principal component analysis, agglomerative hierarchical and the k-means cluster analysis were employed to determine the four livelihood clusters and to assign households to the identified livelihood strategies. Households’ environmental dependency, poverty and asset holding were compared across the strategies, and the determinants of livelihood choice were analyzed using multinomial logit model. The results indicate the existence of marked differences in environmental dependency, rural poverty and asset endowments across the livelihood groups. Household’s total saving, access to credit, production implements, business cost, exposure to agricultural shock determined household’s access to a more remunerative livelihood strategy. Incomes from each livelihood activities for the identified livelihood strategies were analyzed, and their implications were also discussed.