Table 3.

Understanding the livelihoods of sand labourers and coastal fishers through a precarity analysis

Livelihood type	Precarity components
	Organizational context	Economic conditions	Level of labour protection	Temporal and spatial effects	Ecological and biophysical change
Sand labourers	No unions, workers can be fired at will, no work contracts signed	Higher pay than many rural resource jobs. (pumpers and dredgers earn $300 to $500 USD per month), but pay is unstable. Some workers are not paid in time	No protection against injury. In rare cases, financial protection from employers in times of low availability of sand work is offered	Work is uneven, starting and stopping without predictability. Many workers travel from station to station in search of work	Sand is still plentiful in Cambodia, but as it is depleted, workers will lose their jobs
Fishing	Most coastal fishers are self-employed. Fishers are not organized into unions, and have no formal work contracts	Fishers earn around $250–300 USD per month, varying highly between households and dependent on expenses incurred. Virtually all fishers have reported decreasing earnings over time	No protection against injury or equipment loss; no formal social protection measures. Insurance schemes are uncommon among rural fishing villages	As marine resources decline, fishers have to travel further out to sea, often spending the night or working over the night. Rainy season results in the halting of fishing activities for most	Fishers face declining catches over time. Sand mining, overfishing, and environmental change contribute to declining fish stocks