Urban Trajectories in Rural Livelihood Strategies: Household Employment Patterns in Kenya’s Coast Province

This chapter reviews off-farm employment activities of rural household members, as contributions to the diversification of the household’s sources of income. Coast Province is considered an economically backward area in the Kenyan economy with limited agricultural opportunities. The livelihood strategies of its rural inhabitants reflect this and there is a concomitant blurring of rural and urban boundaries in the residential and occupational patterns of the population. Low-income households were defined as those with an annual income below the food poverty line. Most of these households are ‘trapped in the vicious cycle of poverty’: low energy intake leads to under-nutrition and to under-utilisation of labour, which, in turn, adversely affect agricultural production. The de-agrarianisation process at household level has been underway for decades in Coast Province. Diversification of household resources means first of all an income from one or more off-farm activities.