Abstract
In the field of agriculture and rural development, a thorough understanding of rural livelihoods forms the basis of academic and development projects. Livelihood diversity (diversification) has been discussed often in the context of household economy, especially in the developing countries of Asia and Africa. However, methods for evaluating livelihood diversification have not yet been standardized to the point where they can be applied to comparative studies or meta-analyses. Therefore, this study aimed to develop a simple method for measuring the livelihood diversity of rural households in Southeast Asia based on common indices and standardized measures. First, two popular indices were selected: the Structural Livelihood Diversity Index (SLDI) and the Distributive Livelihood Diversity Index (DLDI), which is an inversed Simpson index. Then, to extend the potential application of the SLDI and DLDI, two additional measures were established. The first measure consisted of 12 general categories for classifying livelihood activities that are applicable to rural villages under the different ecological and socioeconomic conditions of the region. The second measure consisted of a scale comprising five grades for classifying ranges in the quantitative data. Finally, a package consisting of the two indices and the two measures could be practically applied to some cases on both the mainland and insular Southeast Asia. The accuracy of the developed method was verified using the Monte Carlo method.
