Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia

Collective action can help individuals, groups, and communities achieve common goals, thus contributing to poverty reduction. Drawing on longitudinal household and qualitative community data, the authors examine the impact of shocks on household living standards, study the correlates of participatio...

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Autores principales: Dercon, Stefan, Hoddinott, John F., Krishnan, Pramila, Woldehanna, Tassew
Formato: Artículo preliminar
Lenguaje:Inglés
Publicado: International Food Policy Research Institute 2008
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/160613
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author Dercon, Stefan
Hoddinott, John F.
Krishnan, Pramila
Woldehanna, Tassew
author_browse Dercon, Stefan
Hoddinott, John F.
Krishnan, Pramila
Woldehanna, Tassew
author_facet Dercon, Stefan
Hoddinott, John F.
Krishnan, Pramila
Woldehanna, Tassew
author_sort Dercon, Stefan
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Collective action can help individuals, groups, and communities achieve common goals, thus contributing to poverty reduction. Drawing on longitudinal household and qualitative community data, the authors examine the impact of shocks on household living standards, study the correlates of participation in groups and formal and informal networks, and discuss the relationship of networks with access to other forms of capital. In this context, they assess how one form of collective action, iddir, or burial societies, help households attenuate the impact of illness. They find that iddir effectively deal with problems of asymmetric information by restricting membership geographically, imposing a membership fee, and conducting checks on how the funds were spent. The study also finds that while iddir help poor households cope with individual health shocks, but shows that the better-off households belong to more groups and have larger networks. In addition, where households have limited ability to develop spatial networks, collective action has limited ability to respond to covariate shocks. Therefore, realism is needed in terms of the ability of collective action to respond to shocks, and direct public action is more appropriate to deal with common shocks.
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spelling CGSpace1606132025-02-24T06:48:56Z Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia Dercon, Stefan Hoddinott, John F. Krishnan, Pramila Woldehanna, Tassew collective action social protection shock vulnerability poverty networks social capital Collective action can help individuals, groups, and communities achieve common goals, thus contributing to poverty reduction. Drawing on longitudinal household and qualitative community data, the authors examine the impact of shocks on household living standards, study the correlates of participation in groups and formal and informal networks, and discuss the relationship of networks with access to other forms of capital. In this context, they assess how one form of collective action, iddir, or burial societies, help households attenuate the impact of illness. They find that iddir effectively deal with problems of asymmetric information by restricting membership geographically, imposing a membership fee, and conducting checks on how the funds were spent. The study also finds that while iddir help poor households cope with individual health shocks, but shows that the better-off households belong to more groups and have larger networks. In addition, where households have limited ability to develop spatial networks, collective action has limited ability to respond to covariate shocks. Therefore, realism is needed in terms of the ability of collective action to respond to shocks, and direct public action is more appropriate to deal with common shocks. 2008 2024-11-21T09:51:19Z 2024-11-21T09:51:19Z Working Paper https://hdl.handle.net/10568/160613 en Open Access application/pdf International Food Policy Research Institute Dercon, Stefan; Hoddinott, John F.; Krishnan, Pramila; Woldehanna, Tassew. 2008. Collective action and vulnerability. CAPRi working paper 0083 https://doi.org/10.2499/capriwp83.
spellingShingle collective action
social protection
shock
vulnerability
poverty
networks
social capital
Dercon, Stefan
Hoddinott, John F.
Krishnan, Pramila
Woldehanna, Tassew
Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia
title Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia
title_full Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia
title_fullStr Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia
title_full_unstemmed Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia
title_short Collective action and vulnerability: Burial societies in rural Ethiopia
title_sort collective action and vulnerability burial societies in rural ethiopia
topic collective action
social protection
shock
vulnerability
poverty
networks
social capital
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/160613
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