Title: Livelihood Strategies and Employment Structure in Northwest Pakistan
Abstract: In this study, the livelihood strategies and changes in employment structure in Northwest Pakistan are explored from a household perspective. The study combined socio-economic longitudinal survey data that had been collected previously twenty years apart (in 1967 and 1987) with quantitative data collected 18 years later (in 2005), retrospectively tracing events and changes during that period. The universe of the research are six rural villages in the district Peshawar Northwest Pakistan. The basic survey in addition to revealing the current livelihood strategies also focused on changes in the occupational structures of the rural households during that period. The census type basic survey of 2825 households, followed by subject-specific special survey of 120 households, revealed that non-agricultural employment is an important livelihood strategy practised by rural dwellers. However, most of the non-farm employment consists of informal casual wage jobs and low rewarding pettytrade. The poverty in the area is wide-spread, deep-seated and severe and is accompanied by a certain degree of inequality among the rural house-holds. The logistic regression on poverty was also used to ascertain the determinants of poverty. Comparing the employment structures with previous surveys conducted in the same villages, the analyses revealed the increasingly important role of the non-farm economy in the area with farming becoming increasingly marginalized. The study also analyses the diversity of livelihood strategies of the rural people living in the six villages in Northwest Pakistan. There is great diversity in the non-farm occupations, but the majority are survival oriented. Descriptive statistics along with diversity indices revealed the distribution patterns of employment and livelihood strategies across the study villages. The results from the logit model showed that the households asset endowment has a significant effect on the households choice of livelihood diversification strategies. Similarly, the multinomiallogit m odel revealed, with respect to the household employment decisions, the importance of individual, household and community related variables such as education, age, household size, working members and location. It is the larger households with senior household heads who have some education which are generally found to be involved in relatively high-return, formal-sector occupations. Older household heads with smaller work-forces at their disposal tend to continue practising pure tenancy. The implication of the study is that the rural non-farm sector needs its due share in development policies as it has the potential to uplift the rural areas. More precisely, the informal sector that is the main source of survival for the rural poor is in urgent need of support.