IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/deveza/v22y2005i1p27-45.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Income diversification before and after economic shocks: evidence from urban and rural Zimbabwe

Author

Listed:
  • Lire Ersado

Abstract

The article examines changes in income and activity diversification in Zimbabwe before and after macroeconomic policy changes and the droughts of the early 1990s. Data from two comparable national surveys straddling a period of economic volatility show that the percentage of households earning income from private and informal sources grew considerably, while income from government and formal sources declined. In general, rural households tend to have a more diversified portfolio of income than urban households, and the degree of income diversification decreases with the level of urbanisation. Following the shocks, there was a marked reduction in income diversification, notably among the poor. The findings thus strengthen the need for public provision of well-designed safety nets.

Suggested Citation

  • Lire Ersado, 2005. "Income diversification before and after economic shocks: evidence from urban and rural Zimbabwe," Development Southern Africa, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 27-45.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:deveza:v:22:y:2005:i:1:p:27-45
    DOI: 10.1080/03768350500044347
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03768350500044347
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/03768350500044347?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frederic ZIMMERMAN & Michael R. CARTER, 1996. "Dynamic Portfolio Management Under Risk And Subsistence Constraints In Developing Countries," Staff Papers 402, University of Wisconsin Madison, AAE.
    2. Ellis, Frank, 2000. "Rural Livelihoods and Diversity in Developing Countries," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198296966.
    3. Frank Ellis, 2000. "The Determinants of Rural Livelihood Diversification in Developing Countries," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(2), pages 289-302, May.
    4. Zimmerman, Frederic & Carter, Michael R., 1996. "Dynamic Portfolio Management Under Risk And Subsistence Constraints In Developing Countries," Staff Papers 12649, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Poulsen, Melissa N. & McNab, Philip R. & Clayton, Megan L. & Neff, Roni A., 2015. "A systematic review of urban agriculture and food security impacts in low-income countries," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 131-146.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ersado, Lire, 2006. "Income diversification in Zimbabwe : welfare implications from urban and rural areas," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3964, The World Bank.
    2. Rao, Nitya, 2017. "Assets, Agency and Legitimacy: Towards a Relational Understanding of Gender Equality Policy and Practice," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 43-54.
    3. Jan Fałkowski & Maciej Jakubowski & Paweł Strawiński, 2014. "Returns from income strategies in rural Poland," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 22(1), pages 139-178, January.
    4. Food Security and Agricultural Projects Analysis Service (ESAF), 2004. "Food insecurity and vulnerability in Viet Nam: Profiles of four vulnerable groups," ESA Working Papers 23798, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA).
    5. Dolores Koenig, 2024. "Evaluating well‐being after compulsory resettlement: Livelihoods, standards of living, and well‐being in Manantali, Mali," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(2), pages 210-220, June.
    6. Hendrawan, Dienda C P & Musshoff, Oliver, 2022. "Oil Palm Smallholder Farmers' Livelihood Resilience and Decision Making in Replanting," 2022 Annual Meeting, July 31-August 2, Anaheim, California 322441, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    7. Jon D. Unruh, 2008. "Toward sustainable livelihoods after war: Reconstituting rural land tenure systems," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 32(2), pages 103-115, May.
    8. Yen H. T. Nguyen & Tuyen Q. Tran & Dung T. Hoang & Thu M. T. Tran & Trung T. Nguyen, 2023. "Land quality, income, and poverty among rural households in the North Central Region, Vietnam," Poverty & Public Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(2), pages 150-172, June.
    9. Walelign,Solomon Zena & Wang Sonne,Soazic Elise & Seshan,Ganesh Kumar, 2022. "Livelihood Impacts of Refugees on Host Communities : Evidence from Ethiopia," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10044, The World Bank.
    10. Porro, Roberto & Lopez-Feldman, Alejandro & Vela-Alvarado, Jorge W., 2015. "Forest use and agriculture in Ucayali, Peru: Livelihood strategies, poverty and wealth in an Amazon frontier," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 47-56.
    11. Jung, Suhyun & Hajjar, Reem, 2023. "The livelihood impacts of transnational aid for climate change mitigation: Evidence from Ghana," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    12. Anwar Kurniadi & IDK Widana & Christine Sri Marnani, 2023. "Mangrove Forest Development as Sustainable Vegetation Disaster Mitigation against Coastal Abrasion and Rob Floods in Supporting Regional Resilience in Bekasi Regency," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 39(1), pages 440-451, January.
    13. Yohannes Teshome & Kaba Urgessa & Anouska Ann Kinahan & Hailu Belay & Sisay Assefa, 2018. "An Assessment of Local Community Livelihood Benefits as a result of Bale Mountains National Park, Southeast Ethiopia," International Journal of Environmental Sciences & Natural Resources, Juniper Publishers Inc., vol. 15(5), pages 133-140, December.
    14. H.M. Tuihedur Rahman & Gordon M. Hickey, 2020. "An Analytical Framework for Assessing Context-Specific Rural Livelihood Vulnerability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(14), pages 1-26, July.
    15. Sara Randall & Ernestina Coast, 2015. "Poverty in African Households: the Limits of Survey and Census Representations," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 162-177, February.
    16. Carter, Michael R. & May, Julian, 1999. "Poverty, livelihood and class in rural South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 1-20, January.
    17. Elijah Yendaw & Augustine Tanle & Akwasi Kumi-Kyereme, 2019. "Analysis of livelihood activity amongst itinerant west African migrant traders in the Accra metropolitan area," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 9(1), pages 1-21, December.
    18. Maria Mwaipopo Fibaek, 2021. "Working Poor? A Study of Rural Workers' Economic Welfare in Kenya," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(1), pages 41-69, January.
    19. Francesca Marchetta, 2011. "On the Move Livelihood Strategies in Northern Ghana," CERDI Working papers halshs-00591137, HAL.
    20. Wunder, Sven & Angelsen, Arild & Belcher, Brian, 2014. "Forests, Livelihoods, and Conservation: Broadening the Empirical Base," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(S1), pages 1-11.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:deveza:v:22:y:2005:i:1:p:27-45. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CDSA20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.