Building Economic Resilience Through Skill Development: Evidence From Tribal Livelihoods In Rural Odisha

Abstract

Objective: The present study aims at analysing the impact of skill training on rural tribal youths in Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj District of Odisha in terms of their economic robustness. Specifically, it looks into the sequential connection between training quality, skill acquisition, empowerment, capacity building and economic resilience.

Methodology: The research conducted in this article was quantitative, descriptive and cross-sectional. A well-constructed questionnaire, adapted to a five-point Likert scale was used to process the primary data gathered from the 589 rural tribal youths. The instrument applied to measure had been tested on reliability and construct test. To test the hypotheses, some descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, Pearson correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis were conducted in IBM SPSS Statistics version 32.

Results: The results show that the quality of training can significantly increase skill acquisition which further leads to empowerment and capacity building. The potential of capacity building to predict economic resilience was highest, highlighting the fact that sustainable livelihood outcomes are determined by the process of building capacities, confidence and adaptive abilities over time. The proposed model was able to account for an important amount of variability in economic resilience, thereby validating the positive affect of integrating skill development activities on improving the economic security of rural tribal youths.

Original and Value: The study posits a framework that combines skill development and economic resilience in the case of tribal youth and provides an empirical proof to assist policy makers and development organisations in designing more effective, inclusive and sustainable livelihood interventions in rural India.