Rural Livelihood Diversification and its Measurement Issues: Focus India

The rural structural distinctiveness in terms of resource endowments and factors of production often has bearings on livelihood and well-being of their people, constraining improvement in the economic conditions of farm households solely through farming operations. There is an emerging consensus that the livelihood security and well being of rural households improve with the blending of non-farm economic activities with farm activities and such diversification of rural livelihood positively impacts the farm efficiency. This paper delves into its multiple dimensions and its measurement with respective conceptual framework, indicators, and data inputs from multiple sources and data limitations, with focus on analytical inferences for India. Accordingly the paper articulates the need for further studies on its different dimensions, improvement in the measurement, and data exploration for furthering the Wye Group agenda of rural livelihood development.