A quantitative analysis of farmland and households’ livelihood in rural Vietnam

Using data from the 2014 Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey, this study employs cluster analysis techniques to provide the first classification of five livelihood strategies pursued by rural households. The methodology also included a comparison between the per capita household income across livelihood strategies using the Bonferroni pairwise tests. The authors found that households with non-farming or wage-earning livelihoods achieved the highest income levels, while those depending on farm-related incomes or a mix of wage-earning and farm-related incomes had the lowest income levels. Furthermore, factors associated with the choice of livelihoods were investigated using a multinomial logit model. The findings reveal that farmland is negatively associated with the choice of high return livelihood strategies. This suggests that access to farmland is not a potential barrier to the pursuit of lucrative strategies. In addition, the education level of household heads proved to have a positive effect on the pursuit of remunerative strategies. The authors also found that households living in communes with minimal infrastructure and non-farming job opportunities have a more significant chance to adopt high-return livelihoods.