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Key Text The Impact of Conflict and Fragility on Households: A Conceptual Framework with Reference to Widows

Author: Tilman Brück and Kati Schindler
Date: 2008
Size: 20 pages (128 kB)

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Summary

How do mass violent conflict and a fragile environment affect households? How do poor households cope with such an environment? This paper from the United Nations University World Institute for Development Research analyses the channels through which mass violent conflict and post-conflict fragility affect households. It highlights how a fragile environment impairs a household’s core functions, boundaries and choice of income generating activities.

Household boundaries and activities and intra-household relations and gender roles are likely to be strongly affected by mass violent conflict. Widows may be particularly affected, facing, for example, a different set of incentives to reorganise household membership as a result of a vulnerable social position. Households are likely to be constrained in their choice of coping strategies because conflict destroys various production inputs and assets, and interrupts markets. As a result, a household’s income generating activities may entail a higher risk and a reduced profit margin.

There are a number of gaps in the economic literature on conflict and widows of conflict. These gaps are addressed by the following conceptual framework for analysis, which can be applied to widows of conflict as one example of conflict-affected households:

  • Household boundaries may become permeable during conflict due to death and displacement. Violent conflict affects households’ activities, constraining choices for income generation. It also affects intra-household relations and gender roles.
  • Widows may reorganise membership of their household during conflict to cope with societal pressure against single women. The impact of conflict on gender roles can affect widows differently depending on the make-up of the household they live in.
  • Conflict may reduce the number of producers in a household, prevent households from using land endowments and lead to the loss of capital. It may also interrupt markets and undermine social cohesion, constraining income generating activities.
  • Widows are affected by the absence of working-age males in conflict and may face cultural or legal impediments to owning land and capital. Widows may face constraints to earning a livelihood through, for example, social marginalisation.
  • Conflict affects groups differently and different groups may use differing coping strategies in conflict. Groups can be classified along various dimensions, including the changeability and visibility of common features and the sense of sharing them.
  • Households with one or more widows of conflict can be considered a conflict-affected group. Widows are likely to be known to the community and may share a perception of widowhood. However, they may have very different experiences of conflict.

The above findings and conceptual framework advance knowledge on the economics of conflict in several ways and have a number of implications for future research:

  • The findings highlight the need to analyse the impact of conflict and fragility at the household level
  • The findings show the need to analyse the impact of conflict on several production inputs jointly to determine how households’ income generating strategies are chosen
  • The concept of group outlined above may be used to establish whether common features determine the coping strategies of groups of households
  • The conceptual framework can be used to analyse policy relevant case studies of conflict-affected groups, such as war widows, children or displaced households
  • The conceptual issues raised may be verified empirically in order to quantify the impact of conflict on households and groups of households.

Please note that a revised version of this paper will be published in Oxford Development Studies, volume 73, issue 3 in September 2009.

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Source: Brück T., and Schindler K., 2008, 'The Impact of Conflict and Fragility on Households: A Conceptual Framework with Reference to Widows', UNU-WIDER Research Paper no. 83, United Nations University, Helsinki
Author: Kati Schindler , kschindler[at]diw.de
Organisation: World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University, http://www.wider.unu.edu/

 

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