Unexploded ordnance contamination and household livelihood choice in rural Vietnam

Vietnam is a country that found itself at the center of the Indochina wars and was subjected to the most intense aerial bombing in history. However, little research has been done on the effect of unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination on household livelihoods in rural Vietnam. In this paper, we inv...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Russian journal of economics (Moskva) 2022-10, Vol.8 (3), p.276-294
Main Authors: Nguyen, Thuy Ngoc, Tran, Tuyen Quang, Vu, Huong Van
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
cluster analysis
income
Indochina
livelihood
logit analysis
poverty
risk
Vietnam
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Vietnam is a country that found itself at the center of the Indochina wars and was subjected to the most intense aerial bombing in history. However, little research has been done on the effect of unexploded ordnance (UXO) contamination on household livelihoods in rural Vietnam. In this paper, we investigate the contaminating effect of unexploded ordnance on households. Livelihood choices are classified by cluster analysis techniques, and unexploded ordnance contamination is measured at the district level by the proportion of land at risk from unexploded bombs and mines. We examine the effect of UXO contamination on livelihood choices using a multinomial logit model, controlling for various important household and regional level characteristics. It was found that households in districts with greater contamination were less likely to adopt a formal wage-earning livelihood, characterized by higher income and less poverty, than they were to engage in an agricultural livelihood. This suggests that the Indochina wars have had a long-running effect, reducing the likelihood of non-farm diversification, which in turn diminishes economic well-being among rural households in Vietnam.
ISSN:2618-7213
2405-4739
2405-4739
DOI:10.32609/j.ruje.8.79738