Forest resources and household welfare: Empirical evidence from North Central Vietnam

Abstract

Using secondary data from a socio‐economic quantitative household survey of the North Central region of Vietnam, the main aim of our study is to analyze the causal effect of forest resources on household income and poverty. Based on the observed characteristics of a forest‐based livelihood and forest‐related activities, we use a propensity score matching (PSM) method to control for potential bias arising from self‐selection. The PSM results indicate that households with a forest‐based livelihood had a higher level of income and lower poverty rates than did those without. Interestingly, our findings confirm that a forest‐based livelihood offers much higher income than any other type of livelihood adopted by local households. Also, the poverty rate among households with a forest‐based livelihood is lower than those earning non‐labor income or engaged in wage/crop and crop livelihoods. Among households and provinces, we find varying opportunities deriving from forest resources, suggesting that there are potential barriers hindering local households from pursuing a forest livelihood or participating in some forest activities. Therefore, government policy and regulations on forest management should focus on improving the access of households to forest resources, while enhancing the sustainability of these resources.

Unexploded ordnance contamination and household livelihood choice in rural Vietnam

“…This method is commonly applied in various fields such as medicine, psychology, marketing, and economics (Everitt et al, 2011). Following Ellis (2000) and empirical studies in Vietnam (Hoang et al, 2019(Hoang et al, , 2020, we use the various proportions of income sources as input variables for cluster analysis. Because the selected household sample includes rural households, five income sources are used, namely: (i) informal wage income (income from wage-paying work without a formal labor contract); (ii) formal wage income (income from wage-paying work with a formal labor contract); (iii) nonfarm income (income from non-farm self-employment activities at the individual or household level); (iv) agricultural income (income from cultivation, fisheries, livestock and forestry) and (v) non-labor income or other sources of income (income from remittances, transfers, rentals and interest, etc.…”

Urban Green Infrastructure for Poverty Alleviation: Evidence Synthesis and Conceptual Considerations

“…Whilst the collection of wild products is well known, relatively little urban research has made the explicit links between the availability and use of such products to household welfare and the role in poverty alleviation (Uddin, 2006;Shackleton et al, 2018). This in contrast to rural research with dozens of papers per year Leßmeister et al, 2018;Pullanikkatkil and Shackleton, 2018;Hoang et al, 2020;Walle and Nayak, 2020). In urban contexts, ecological studies (e.g., Hurley and Emery, 2018) focus primarily on the species available and quantities harvested, possibly along with the potential ecological impacts.…”