Assessing livelihood resilience over time in two rural coastal communities in Mexico

Rural livelihoods are threatened by disturbances that reduce household resilience. While capital assets, learning capacities, self-reliance, diversity, and connectivity enhance resilience, these indicators have not yet been fully operationalized or tested empirically over time at the household level. This study develops a livelihood resilience index that measures changes in these capacities across two rural case studies over 2013 and 2016. Results reveal declining resilience trajectories shaped by cumulative disturbances, capacity erosion, and contextual constraints. Households experienced significant losses in social, economic, and ecological diversity, leadership networks, social capital, and natural resource use. These findings demonstrate that resilience depends not only on social dimensions but critically on maintaining diversity, connectivity, learning capacity, and self-reliance. We discuss operational challenges in measuring this multidimensional index and argue that policies must address the full spectrum of resilience capacities to support rural livelihoods.