NOVEMBER 2021
INSIGHTS FROM MY AID DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANCIES SUFFICIENT SAVINGS AND SUFFICIENT LIVELIHOODS In 2018, a study of livelihoods in five provinces in Cambodia with 500 participants - equally 50 percent male and female - with an average age of 40 - showed that 40 percent were farmers, 48 percent owned their own small business, and 12 percent worked for the government. More than half had no primary school education. Women were significantly more likely to have a savings account (50 percent vs 38 percent of men), and rural participants were more likely to have a savings account (60 percent vs 20 percent of urban participants). Of those with savings, 67 percent said that they would not migrate to Thailand or Vietnam to look for work and 16 percent said they had a strong interest in migrating. The question whether having a savings account might serve as a mediating factor to encourage people to work within their own country led to modest findings and did not reach conventional levels of statistical significance. However, the correlation points in the desired direction: 18 percent with no savings account expressed a strong interest in migrating against 15 percent without a savings account. Men with a savings account were more likely to be disinterested in migrating than men without a savings account, but there was no significant difference for women with or without a savings account. The study looked at the correlation between a person's self-reported income status and the person's interest in migrating within the next two years. "Sufficient" was a self-determined status, denoting whether the person had sufficient livelihoods to support themselves and their family - i.e. to cover food and housing costs. No-one indicated that they had "totally sufficient" funds. Of those with sufficient livelihoods, 67 percent had no interest in migrating, and 30 percent still thought of migrating, whereas 39% of people with insufficient livelihoods would think of migrating to look for work. Again, the results were not significant, but the pattern was as expected. It would be interesting to do further studies in this area.
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MARTINA NICOLLS
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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).
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