Fishing is a difficult, dangerous, and financially risky way to make a living, but the qualities of fishing as an occupation attract many participants that prefer it to higher paying and safer jobs. Understanding the non-monetary benefits of fishing as an occupation, and ties to fishing as way of life, can help fishery managers better understand fishers decision making and increase the benefits fishermen and communities derive from fisheries. We use survey responses from over 1400 West Coast commercial fishing vessel owners to derive measures of job satisfaction, social capital, and identity at the individual level. We explore how these measures relate to each other and how they are influenced by the fisheries individuals participate in. Like prior studies, we first use exploratory factor analysis to identify latent variables that represent different aspects of job satisfaction, identity and social capita. We then compare results to polychoric factor analysis and structural equation modeling that more correctly account for ordinal response variables from which these measures are derived. We quantify distinct latent variables representing job satisfaction related to job quality (e.g. self-actualization and aesthetic factors such as being outdoors) vs. pecuniary aspects of the job (e.g. level and variability of income). We estimate latent variables for identity and social capital, and find that, though correlated, the can be statistically differentiated from each other. Intriguingly, we also found that social capital and identity appear to have distinct effects on (stated) fishery participation behavior. We found differences in job satisfaction, as well as identity and social capital across fisheries. These could have some implications for understanding how fishermen will respond to changes in profitability and regulations in these fisheries.

Hundreds of millions of poor people around the world depend directly on small-scale fisheries for their livelihoods. Fluctuations in fishery conditions and degradation of fishery resources can therefore have a deleterious effect on these population, in particular during key periods of human development. In this study, we match high-resolution satellite data on chlorophyll-a concentrations and sea surface temperature with roughly two million georeferenced child-level observations from nearly two decades of the Demographic and Health Surveys in 86 coastal countries. Our fixed effect empirical specifications, which control for time-invariant characteristics of DHS clusters and secular regional time trends, study how recent fluctuations in fishing conditions, and thus (either direct or indirect) nutrition from fisheries, affects child stunting and wasting among children under five. Our preliminary results suggest that one or more recent months of bad fishing conditions, as compared to long-term median conditions, leads to a statistically significant increase in our global sample of children. These results provide the first evidence we know of on the contribution of small-scale fisheries to livelihoods and the well-being of poor coastal children around the world.

The cost of occupational diseases and the cost of lost labor associated with the disability of workers can be fairly high. Around the world, diving fisheries are an important source of income for many coastal communities; however, are also the cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries. Therefore, the aim of this study is to estimate the costs of decompression sickness (DCS) in the diving small-scale fisheries targeting benthic resources in the Yucatan, Mexico. In order to achieve this objective three types of costs were used: direct costs (DC), indirect costs (IC) and social costs (SC). The DCS cases that occurred during fishing seasons of sea cucumber (Isostichopus badionotus) and spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) were used to calculate the direct medical costs. The catch data were used to calculate the potential losses caused by disability as indirect costs. The social costs were the sum of the direct and indirect costs. In the years analyzed (2013 to 2016) the number of fishermen treated in the region numbered 116 during lobster fishing and 166 during sea cucumber. The direct medical costs were estimated to be USD $120,269; the temporary loss of income in USD $724,377; and the permanent loss of income was USD $737,053. Thus, the social costs of diving in both small-scale fisheries was USD $1,614,121. This is a first approach to estimate the cost of the use of diving in fisheries for the health services but for the fishing communities as well. The analysis of the costs of DCS in the diving fisheries would be the first step to achieve a complete evaluation of the fishery to improve its management.

In Yucatan, most fisheries have been assessed considering the single-species resource approach, despite most fishers operate over a diversity of species using multiple fishing methods. In this study, we undertake a comparative analysis of fishing operations of artisanal fishers in six fishing communities of three states in the Southeast of Mexico. We aimed to understand the incentives of fishers to remain in the activity despite a decrease in the most important resources targeted in the area. To do so, we collected monthly data in the communities about fishing operations of artisanal boats between 2016 and 2017: fishing effort, travel costs, fishing sites, target species, and prices obtained for the species. We undertook a comparative analysis accounting for the fishing gear, target species, and fishing sites. We observed differences in the price of the same species in different ports and in the fishing operation patterns, which generated a difference in the cuasi-rent. Our results show that despite small-scale fisheries are considered in many cases as subsistence fisheries, in this case study, fishers obtained an income above other economic activities in rural areas, as fishers diversify their activities and develop strategies to maintain their daily income; hence the obtained cuasi-rent is an incentive to remain fishing. We discuss the adaptive strategies developed by artisanal fishers to face catch reduction and uncertainty about resource availability as well as the risk of contributing to a poverty trap if regulations in artisanal fisheries are weak.