Measuring the livelihood vulnerability index of a dry region in Indonesia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the study of sustainable rural livelihoods by developing a model to measure vulnerability of subsistence communities in dryland regions and identifying the major determinants that contribute to the livelihood vulnerability of these communities. Design/methodology/approach The author conducted a household survey across three subsistence communities in West Timor (n=627), from June to November 2013. Based on the guideline of the OECD (2008), the author developed a series of indicators and constructed a composite index to measure the vulnerability of dryland communities. The author adapted the livelihood vulnerability index (LVI) measure from Hahn et al. (2009) but refined it by using Shannon’s entropy method in deciding the weights of indicators and statistically tested the correlation between indicators using Kendall’s correlations. Findings Six major determinants were identified: education (EDU), children’s participation in agriculture (CPA), agricultural income (AI), subsistence food reserve (SUBSIST), social-cultural participation (SCP) and access to water, health clinic and market (ACC). LVI in all communities shows significant and strong relationships with SCP (0.594, p<0.01), AI (0.545, p<0.01) and CPA (0.434, p