Rural Income Generation and Diversification - A Case Study ... - Doria

activities and spending a higher-than-average number of days engaged in them, that was a
member of more than one group or organisation, and held higher positions in these groups
scored more highly. The respondents were also asked whether they felt they could trust people
in the neighbourhood, or whether they needed to be very careful. Indication of a sense of
trust contributed 20 per cent to the variable.
Table 16. Elements of the participation variable.
Variable Options Weight
Did the household participate
in communal activities?
yes=1 no=0 0.2
Number of days household higher than lower than 0.2
spent in communal activities average=1 average=0
Group memberships more than one or 0.2
one=1 none=0
Holding higher positions in
groups
yes=1 no=0 0.2
Trusting people in the yes=1 no=0 0.2
neighbourhood
Total maximum=5 minimum=0
Source: the researcher’s own dataset 2003.
Vulnerability
Collecting data on attitudes to risk would have required specific experimental arrangements.
This was considered inappropriate for this study because implementing controlled experiments
would have involved high costs and practical difficulties, and would have raised ethical
questions.
A specific vulnerability variable based on the household characteristics was constructed in
order to capture some features of exposure to risks and the ability to deal with them when
they materialise. The higher the vulnerability, the lower the household’s capacity to adjust
and recover from shocks. Del Ninno and Marini (2005) 47 argue that risk and insecurity are a
major component of poverty, and that among the 73 per cent of Zambian people who are
considered poor, certain groups are particularly vulnerable to shocks because of their lack of
human, physical, and social capital with which to respond to them. Vulnerability also affects
the household capacity to take risks. Moreover, Hussein and Nelson (1998) claimed that the
most vulnerable rural groups had the fewest opportunities to diversify.
47 Del Ninno and Marini 2005. Household’s Vulnerability to Shocks in Zambia. World Bank SP Discussion
Paper no. 0536.
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