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Households' responses to climate change: contingent behavior evidence from rural South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2017

Wijaya Dassanayake ,
Sandeep Mohapatra ,
Martin K. Luckert  and
Wiktor Adamowicz
Wijaya Dassanayake*
Affiliation:
School of Public Health, University of Alberta, 3-270 Edmonton Clinic Health Academy, Canada
Sandeep Mohapatra
Affiliation:
Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada
Martin K. Luckert
Affiliation:
Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada
Wiktor Adamowicz
Affiliation:
Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology, University of Alberta, Canada
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

We investigate households' decisions regarding livelihood activities in response to future climate change in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. We use the contingent behavior method and account for unobserved heterogeneity in order to overcome problems associated with limited data, collinearity and endogeneity. We characterize the climate change with two types of climate change scenarios: dry-spells and wet-spells. Results show that moderate and extreme increases in dry-spells increase adoption of off-farm activities such as casual labor and small business, and decrease adoption of on-farm activities such as gardening. We find opposite cases for mild or moderate wet-spells. Our results also show that households tend to diversify their livelihood portfolios in response to a moderate increase in dry-spells and a mild increase in wet-spells. Some household characteristics are also important in influencing some types of activities, including household's health status, gender of the household head, and household's prior experience.

Keywords

Adaptationclimate changecontingent behaviorlivelihoodsSouth Africa
Type
Research Article
Information
Environment and Development Economics , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , February 2018 , pp. 37 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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