Chronic poverty in rural Ethiopia through the lens of life-histories

Camfield, Laura ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0165-9857 and Roelen, Keetie (2013) Chronic poverty in rural Ethiopia through the lens of life-histories. Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 14 (4). pp. 581-602. ISSN 1945-2837

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Abstract

Studying chronic poverty using retrospective qualitative data (life-histories) in conjunction with longitudinal panel data is now recognized to provide deep and reliable insights. This paper uses three rounds of panel data and life-histories collected by Young Lives, a longitudinal study of childhood poverty, to identify factors that contribute to households becoming or remaining poor in rural Ethiopia. It combines a case-centred and a variable-centred approach, analysing and comparing the experiences of individual households (cases) using qualitative and quantitative techniques and interrogating these findings by looking at attributes of households (variables) across a larger sample. The substantive findings on poverty ‘drivers’ and ‘maintainers’ support those of previous studies: rainfall, illness, debt, exclusion from the main social protection scheme. But by mixing different types of data and analysis, the paper shows that combinations of factors rather than single events drive households into poverty, and that household characteristics play an important role. The primary contribution of the paper is methodological as it presents a novel method of using life-histories to investigate chronic poverty in rural Ethiopia by generating or testing hypotheses/findings on poverty drivers and maintainers.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	ethiopia,chronic poverty,life-histories,panel data,mixed methods,case studies,sdg 1 - no poverty ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/no_poverty
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Global Development (formerly School of International Development)
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Gender and Development Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Impact Evaluation Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Life Course, Migration and Wellbeing University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Depositing User:	Julie Frith
Date Deposited:	12 Dec 2012 11:01
Last Modified:	24 Sep 2024 08:53
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/40542
DOI:	10.1080/19452829.2013.827638

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