Livelihood coping strategies Metadata

Households adopting livelihood coping strategies by level of strategy

Livelihood coping strategies

LCS

The Livelihood Coping Strategies Indicator is defined as the share of households that adopted coping strategies of different severity levels in the past 30 days or exhausted them within the past 12 months, which is based on a series of questions about how households manage to cope with shocks that stress their livelihoods. These strategies are categorized by severity - stress, crisis, and emergency - based on their long-term impact on household well-being and productivity. The livelihood coping strategies indicator thus exists in two versions, one for essential needs (LCS-EN) and another for food security (LCS-FS). LCS-FS is recommended to be used in contexts where the prevalence of food insecurity is high, and food needs are on top of unmet needs in the communities; LCS-EN should be used in essential needs assessments, or whenever the objective of an assessment is broader than food security and tackles other essential needs (e.g. shelter, health, etc.).

UNHCR incorporates the Livelihood Coping Strategies indicators to assess the longer-term coping capacity and resilience of forcibly displaced and stateless households. These indicators measure the extent to which families adopt stress, crisis, or emergency coping strategies to meet essential needs or food requirements, using a 30-day recall period. High reliance on emergency strategies, such as selling productive assets or withdrawing children from school, signals severe vulnerability and erosion of future livelihoods. By capturing these behaviors, UNHCR can classify households into vulnerability categories, monitor sustainability of coping mechanisms, and design interventions that prevent irreversible harm. Combined with other essential needs indicators such as FCS (Food Consumption Score) and ECMEN (Economic Capacity to Meet Essential Needs), LCS indicators strengthen multi-sectoral analysis under the UNHCR-WFP Joint Analytical Framework, informing evidence-based programming in cash assistance, food security, and livelihoods. This approach ensures that humanitarian responses address both immediate needs and long-term self-reliance.

The Livelihood Coping Strategies indicators are categorical variables with four levels of severity: No coping strategies, Stress, Crisis, and Emergency. Households are classified into one of these categories based on whether they adopted any coping strategies from a predefined context-specific master list due to insufficient resources to meet essential needs (LCS-EN) or maintain food security (LCS-FS). If multiple strategies are reported, the household is assigned to the category corresponding to the most severe strategy applied. This indicator captures the distribution of how households across coping strategies expressed in percentage. This classification provides a standardized way to assess vulnerability and resilience, highlighting the extent to which households are resorting to harmful coping mechanisms that may compromise their future well-being.

International definition and standards with contextualization

The Livelihood Coping Strategies indicators (LCS-EN and LCS-FS) are highly context-dependent, which poses significant challenges for cross-country or cross-regional comparisons. If the master list of coping strategies is not well adapted to the local context, it may omit relevant behaviors or include strategies that lack meaningful interpretation. Additionally, LCS relies on a 30-day recall period, introducing potential recall bias and underreporting of sensitive strategies such as child labor or begging. The indicator does not capture the frequency or intensity of coping strategies beyond a universal severity hierarchy, limiting its ability to measure the depth of vulnerability. Cultural and social factors may also influence reporting, and the indicator alone cannot provide a comprehensive picture of economic or food security vulnerability without triangulation with other measures such as ECMEN and FCS.

The World Food Programme resource provides a technical guidance note, standard questionnaire modules, an XLS form, calculation scripts, sample data, training material and data quality guidance for collecting, calculating and analysing Livelihood Coping Strategies. Quality assurance should follow the practices of the standardised survey series or data source from which the data is collected.

Source: World Food Programme. Food Consumption Score. https://vamresources.manuals.wfp.org/docs/livelihood-coping-strategies-food-security (Accessed 29 July 2026).