In less developed countries, people usually make arrangements for some
mechanisms to cope with various unpredicted shocks such as serious illness,
injury, crop failure and sudden unemployment and so forth.
This study will analyze the roles of “social networks”, “community based
fund raising activities; Sangaha-tine”, and “remittances from family members”
in the risk-pooling of poor households who face the above-mentioned shocks
in rural Cambodia, using the data collected through household surveys and
field experiments.
For this purpose, we plan to conduct a field survey in Kompong Speu province
and Takeo province.
The objectives of this study are to investigate the mechanisms through
which the rural households who come across unpredicted shocks cope with
damages caused by such shocks and how they mitigate the impacts on the
household economy through informal risk pooling measures, focusing on “social
networks”, “community based fund raising activity; Sangaha-tine”, and “remittances
from family members”.
Existing studies have already uncovered that gift exchange and quasi-credit
among relatives and friends, a custom of community based mutual help, or
remittances from family members played important roles in risk-pooling
of rural households. However, how each of these three factors mutually
affect the other factors, have never been examined by those studies. In
addition, the effect of each factor on risk-pooling has a regional difference.
This study differs from the existing studies in that we take into consideration
the mutual interaction of these three factors and their regional characteristics.
Therefore, we believe this study can contribute to the progress of study
on risk-pooling.
Finally, it is hoped that the findings of this study can be applied to
design more efficient poverty reduction programs (eg. micro-insurance program).
