Understanding rural livelihood strategies and environmental resource dependence can help to reduce and prevent livelihood stresses induced by environmental resource degradation. This study identifies livelihood strategies of farm households in rural Cambodia and explores their determinants with a focus on environmental resource dependence. The data are derived from a survey of 580 households in 30 villages of Stung Treng province in Cambodia undertaken in 2013. An activity-based two-step cluster analysis is conducted to identify different livelihood clusters and regression models are performed to determine the major factors affecting the choice of livelihood strategies and the dependence on environmental resources. The results demonstrate how different levels of environmental and household capital influence livelihood strategies. Environmental resources contribute a significant portion of household income (27%) and act as a means to reduce income inequality (7%) among households. The absolute environmental income is positively correlated with the total income but the relative environmental income decreases with an increase in total income. Thus, it appears that low income households are not to be blamed for environmental degradation, because they are unable to undertake activities with high return. The findings of this study suggest that promoting off-farm employment, education and social networking reduces the extraction of environmental resources.

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This article aims to understand the relation between household food security and individual undernutrition. The multitude of indicators available raises the question which aspects of food security are captured by the respective indicator. In our analysis, we first assess the relation between the dimensions of food security and households' socioeconomic characteristics. Second, we examine whether household indicators detect undernutrition in children. Finally, we investigate the role of individual-specific characteristics for child undernutrition. The analysis is based on a novel data set of 1,200 rural households from Cambodia and Lao PDR, which combines household-and individual-level data. We capture household food security by three indicators including a dietary diversity score, a consumption behavior measure, and an experiential measure. Individual nutrition status is measured via anthropometric indicators. Our results show that different household-level indicators capture fundamentally different aspects of food security. Moreover, household food security fails to explain stunting for children under five. Dietary diversity indicators, however, explain underweight in children to a small extent. We call for more research on intrahousehold allocation of food and stress the implications of our research for the design and targeting of food and nutrition support programs.JEL classifications: Q18, I15, O15

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Fishing in the Mekong River is of utmost importance for rural livelihoods in parts of Cambodia. As a result of ecosystem changes, fish stocks are expected to decline. Using data on 600 rural households collected in two waves in 2013 and 2014 in the province of Stung Treng, we assess the current situation of food security in relation to fishing. To proxy food security, we consider energy and protein intakes as well as Food Security Indexes. Quantitative results show that fishing households had a more nutritious diet in the past week, are more engaged in subsistence activities and had lower additional food expenditure. Furthermore, fishing is effective in reducing seasonal food insecurity for households in the lowest income quartile. In the light of declining fish stocks these findings underscore the need for fishing households to adjust their income earning activities to the expected changes. We call for policymakers to account for the most fish‐dependent groups of the population when designing or adjusting development policies for the area that could potentially affect fish stocks.

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ObjectiveWe investigate the applicability of the Big Five model in rural Southeast Asia and thereby challenge recent concerns about the validity of the model in developing countries.MethodWe use a novel data set on personality traits from rural Thailand and Vietnam (N = 3811 individuals). In our analysis, we (i) assess the factor structure of the data, (ii) test the internal consistency of the items, (iii) compare the traits across two consecutive survey waves, and (iv) employ regressions to demonstrate the economic relevance of the traits.ResultsThe results demonstrate a five‐factor structure that fits the Big Five model. We observe changes in personality traits over time but Cohen's d coefficients only range between 0.06 and 0.21. The average rank‐order stability, measured by the test–retest correlation of the Big Five between the two consecutive waves, lies at 0.21. Individual changes in personality traits over time relate to experienced shocks and appear to be largely independent of age, gender, and education. We further find that openness and emotional stability positively correlate with rural incomes.ConclusionsWhile there is skepticism, pertaining to the use of personality trait models in developing countries, our study demonstrates that their importance and usage cannot be rejected.