Measuring the Livelihood Properties in Rural Areas Using a Sustainable Livelihood Approach (Case Study: Rural Areas of Taybad County)

Rural areas are environments that consist of different multiple sources and villagers use many assets and resources that shape their livelihood procedure. However, in most cases, incomplete and unconscious usage of sources is more destructive than uncontrolled industrial exploitation. For this reason, nowadays, rural poverty due to excessive pressure on resources, is considered as one of the unsustainable factors in the use of resources. Therefore, supporting poor villagers should not be the only main way for helping them meaning that their life style should be changed. In this regard, rural assets and capital could be the basic founders for achieving the goals of sustainable rural livelihood. Therefore, in this study, it had been tried to investigate and address the villagers’ assets and belongings. This research tries to measure the level of livelihood in rural areas of Taybad flat and Karat Dehestans of Taybad Countys and also find the answer for the following questions: are rural people's asserts and capital similar in all parts of the case study area or not? Which part of asserts has more share in rural livelihood? And finally, which one of the villages has a better situation compared to others?
The methods used for this study is a combination of descriptive and analytical methods including the library (documents) and field study (questionnaire) methods. Therefore, generally, in order to measure the level of livelihood assets from rural communities’ perspective, in the first step, the livelihood assets dimensions have been determined which include social, human, natural, physical, financial, and institutional dimensions. Moreower, 23 indicators were identified for these dimensions. In next step, these dimensions and indicators had been inserted into a Likret scale questionnaire designed for householders and rural local managers. In order to measure the questionnaire's reliability, Cronbach's formula was used. The total reliability of the questionnaire is 0.884. Statistical community had been chosen from rural of Taybad flat and Karat Dehestans of Taybad Countys. The unit of analysis is rural points and rural households. Totally, 94 households were determined as a samples size of 5079 households from 16 villages by using of Cochran formula. However, after modifying the share of each rural point, the sample increased to 162 households. A stratified sampling method used for selecting the samples. In this method, in addition to population, rural point geographic distribution had also been considered as a criterion. In order to analyze the gathered data based on research questions and goals, descriptive and inferential statistics had been used and VIKOR as a multi criteria decision making technique for ranking the rural point had also been applied.
The results of the study indicated that there is a significant difference between the villages in terms of their assets. Results of Friedman statistical test showed that social capital with a mean rating of 3.59 is the superior asset in the case study area, which is the sign of high integrity, solidarity, and social cohesion among rural communities. Human assets with a low average rating (mean= 1.11), are known as weak assets in the case study area. These results confirmed the results of Jome Poor and Ahmadi (1390) study about inequality of rural livelihood assets. Finally, the VIKOR decision making techniques for ranking the case study villages based on livelihood assets showed that Poshte and Rahne villages are in a better condition in comparison with the other villages; Poshte and Rahne villages were ranked in the first and last positions, respectively.
The results indicate inequality and lack of balance between rural livelihoods in terms of their assets. The findings of prioritization of rural livelihoods in terms of assets represent the difference between assets in rural areas. These results are similar to Alba's (1390) results and represent the difference in sustainable livelihoods between rural areas. Hence, according to the rankings of VIKOR in terms of assets regarding the studied areas, it can be concluded that Taybad villages share more assets and were ranked in the top positions because of being close to Taybad and using more facilities. Thus, it is crucial to consider the present differences in assets and investments in the planning process for these villages. In addition, major efforts should be done in order to strengthen other weak assets.