TY - BOOK

T1 - Livelihoods of Thai rural households

T2 - opportunities and challenges in times of globalization and global environmental change

AU - Wendt, Niels Robert

PY - 2024/2/15

Y1 - 2024/2/15

N2 - In an increasingly globalised world, Thailand has emerged as an upper-middle-income country, following decades of rapid growth. Once an agrarian nation, Thailand nowadays exhibits a diverse economy with the manufacturing and service sector offering opportunities outside of agriculture. This impressive development has not spread homogenously however, leaving large parts of the country, especially in the rural northeast in the gridlock of a transforming economy, subsistence agriculture, poverty, and an increase in natural disasters. Adjusting to these new challenges has created a plethora of livelihoods whose complexity escapes traditional measures of poverty, necessitating an analysis using more holistic approaches, such as the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Using a large-scale panel dataset spanning over more than a decade, key factors pertaining to rural livelihoods in Thailand such as income, consumption, shocks, and the measurement thereof are analysed in four articles. Following an introduction, the first article of this dissertation explores the income strategies of rural households in Thailand, the determinants of their adoption as well as their success.The results show that agriculture is still retained, even though households increasingly engage in non-farm income strategies. In addition, diversified livelihoods are shown to be the most successful in terms of income, offering the most efficient allocation of resources within a household. Further, the role of migration to exploit opportunities and a lack thereof in rural areas becomes evident. Finally, vulnerability to shocks is particularly notable with households in agriculture, as they experience an increasing frequency of natural disasters. The second article highlights the relevance of good quality data by presenting methodological approaches to identify and eliminate issues in employment data and their collection as well as showcases the impacts of inconsistent data. Article three examines the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and reveals severe impacts after the first major lockdown, with some lasting until the present day. Further, the vulnerability of non-farm income sources to economic shocks is highlighted. Looking at the households from the perspective of consumption using cluster analysis, article four reveals distinct typologies that are in line with the overall livelihood strategies and the findings of the first article. Shocks, especially natural disasters, are shown to initiate changes in the livelihood strategies, either by diversification or by reducing the dependence on agriculture. In a conclusive chapter, key results are summarised and policy recommendations as well as an outlook for future research is presented.

AB - In an increasingly globalised world, Thailand has emerged as an upper-middle-income country, following decades of rapid growth. Once an agrarian nation, Thailand nowadays exhibits a diverse economy with the manufacturing and service sector offering opportunities outside of agriculture. This impressive development has not spread homogenously however, leaving large parts of the country, especially in the rural northeast in the gridlock of a transforming economy, subsistence agriculture, poverty, and an increase in natural disasters. Adjusting to these new challenges has created a plethora of livelihoods whose complexity escapes traditional measures of poverty, necessitating an analysis using more holistic approaches, such as the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework. Using a large-scale panel dataset spanning over more than a decade, key factors pertaining to rural livelihoods in Thailand such as income, consumption, shocks, and the measurement thereof are analysed in four articles. Following an introduction, the first article of this dissertation explores the income strategies of rural households in Thailand, the determinants of their adoption as well as their success.The results show that agriculture is still retained, even though households increasingly engage in non-farm income strategies. In addition, diversified livelihoods are shown to be the most successful in terms of income, offering the most efficient allocation of resources within a household. Further, the role of migration to exploit opportunities and a lack thereof in rural areas becomes evident. Finally, vulnerability to shocks is particularly notable with households in agriculture, as they experience an increasing frequency of natural disasters. The second article highlights the relevance of good quality data by presenting methodological approaches to identify and eliminate issues in employment data and their collection as well as showcases the impacts of inconsistent data. Article three examines the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and reveals severe impacts after the first major lockdown, with some lasting until the present day. Further, the vulnerability of non-farm income sources to economic shocks is highlighted. Looking at the households from the perspective of consumption using cluster analysis, article four reveals distinct typologies that are in line with the overall livelihood strategies and the findings of the first article. Shocks, especially natural disasters, are shown to initiate changes in the livelihood strategies, either by diversification or by reducing the dependence on agriculture. In a conclusive chapter, key results are summarised and policy recommendations as well as an outlook for future research is presented.

U2 - 10.15488/16298

DO - 10.15488/16298

M3 - Doctoral thesis

CY - Hannover

ER -