Self-employment and its influence on the vulnerability to poverty of households in rural Vietnam - A panel data Analysis
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Sohns, Franziska 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5641-7433 and Revilla Diez, Javier
(2016)
Self-employment and its influence on the vulnerability to poverty of households in rural Vietnam - A panel data Analysis.
Geographical Review, 107 (2).
pp. 336-359.
ISSN 00167428 (Print), 1931-0846 (Online)
(doi:10.1111/j.1931-0846.2016.12206.x)
Abstract
The following paper analyses whether becoming self-employed can help to reduce the vulnerability to poverty of rural households. We use data collected during four survey waves in three rural provinces in Vietnam to calculate region-specific logistic panel regressions. The results show that becoming self-employed increases the likelihood of poor households escaping poverty, but only if they are located in a regional economic environment characterized by an advanced stage of structural change, good infrastructural conditions, and proximity to markets. In less well-developed regions, becoming self-employed is not sufficient to increase the probability of poor households escaping poverty. What matters more is that self-employment is driven by opportunity and not by necessity. However, even opportunity-driven self-employment does not guarantee a reduction of vulnerability to poverty in all regional settings and for all household types. Especially, regional overspecialization in cash-crop production and inequality in access to assets have to be taken into account. In times of declining commodity prices, self employment entails a risk of business failure in regions that are overspecialized in cash crop production. For households whose initial investment is high and whose endowment with social and educational assets is low, this can result in increased vulnerability to poverty.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | opportunity-driven self-employment; rural Vietnam; vulnerability to poverty |
| Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: | Faculty of Business Faculty of Business > Department of International Business & Economics |
| Last Modified: | 02 Sep 2020 10:40 |
| URI: | http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/18732 |
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