Sensitivity of Livelihood Strategy to Livelihood Capital: An Empirical Investigation Using Nationally Representative Survey Data from Rural China

Research on the association between rural households’ livelihood capitals and livelihood strategies has long been of interest in geography, management, economics, ecology and other disciplines. However, the existing micro-empirical studies are mostly small-scale surveys of rural households; there are much fewer large-scale investigations at the national level. Meanwhile, few empirical studies have analyzed the sensitivity of rural households’ livelihood strategies to various types of livelihood capitals in different types of villages, from the perspective of village type. This study uses survey data from 8031 rural households in 226 villages from 27 provinces (cities) of China; the villages were divided into three types: plain villages, hilly villages and mountainous villages. The livelihood capitals and livelihood strategies of rural households in different types of villages were examined, and ordinal logistic regression models were construed to explore the sensitivity of rural households’ livelihood strategies to various types of livelihood capitals in different types of villages. The results revealed that: (1) the sample of rural households had similar livelihood asset structures and livelihood strategy selections across the different types of villages. Among them, human capital was the most important livelihood asset for rural households, while rural households had the lowest dependence on natural capital; off-farm work was the main livelihood strategy for rural households, followed by on-farm work, while the proportion of households engaged in part-time work was the smallest. (2) Rural households’ livelihood strategies had different sensitivities to various types of livelihood capitals, and there were also differences in the sensitivities among different types of villages. For the total sample, as well as the hill and mountain village sub-samples, human and financial capitals had significant positive impacts on livelihood strategy, while nature and social capitals had significant negative impacts on livelihood strategy; physical capital had no significant impact on livelihood strategy. For the plain village sub-sample, human and physical capitals had significant positive impacts on livelihood strategy, while nature capital had a significant negative impact on livelihood strategy; financial and social capitals had no significant impacts on livelihood strategy. This study enhances our understanding of the characteristics of rural households’ livelihood capital structures and livelihood strategy selections as well as the sensitivity of rural households’ livelihood strategies to various types of livelihood capitals among different types of villages in China. These findings provide reference for the formulation of policies related to the improvement of rural households’ livelihoods in different types of villages.