A Bibliometric Analysis of Scientific Literature on Livelihood Adaptation in ASEAN Countries During the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 has caused significant economic disruption [1] as businesses and day-to-day activities have ground to a halt [2]. People are urged to stay indoors and maintain social distancing when procuring essential items [3, 4]. The stark contrast between the monthly living costs and earnings in Laos and Singapore, ranging from US\$ 119 to US\$ 3,547 [5], illustrates the socioeconomic disparities among ASEAN residents. Comprehensive fiscal measures are necessary to combat the disease, as the ability to endure economic disruption heavily depends on the social and economic aspects of ASEAN members [6, 7].

Since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in March 2020, the impoverished communities of South Asia have been particularly vulnerable [8]. Lower-income populations are believed to have weaker immune systems and reside in densely populated areas, increasing their infection risk [9]. The Southeast Asian nations of Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam are grappling with a health crisis due to COVID-19. Their governments have strategies to respond and mitigate risks, along with vaccination guidelines for their populations [10].

This article emphasizes a concept of critical relevance in ten ASEAN nations: community livelihood (CL). The notion of 'livelihoods' originated in the early 1990s in international development literature, following the pioneering research on Sustainable Rural Livelihoods by Chambers [11]. The paradigm has evolved to encompass poverty reduction, increased participation, and sustainable development advancement [12]. As the concept of sustainable livelihoods gained traction in the late 1990s, numerous organizations, including UNDP, FAO, the World Food Program, DFID, CARE International, and Oxfam, advocated for sustainable livelihoods [13, 14]. The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development adopted three elements (social, economic, and environmental) as the overarching goals for sustainable livelihoods [15].

While various definitions of sustainable livelihoods exist, there is consensus that the concept encompasses social, economic, and environmental factors. The notion of livelihoods is defined as "the means of earning a living" [16], while incorporating the aspect of sustainability [17], implying sustainable livelihoods consider the capacity to adapt to and recover from stressors and shocks, and maintain or enhance resources and capabilities.

Literature has shown that sustainable livelihoods are crucial for community development [17], focusing on alleviating poverty and pursuing sustainable development goals [16]. For Aboriginal communities in Northern Australia, livelihood [18] and livelihood strategies [19] facilitate analysis of community perspectives on the use of water rights and identification of intra- and inter-community issues. South Africa's national park-dependent communities are marginalized due to the Namibian government's intent to foster tourism-based economic benefits [20]. This literature underscores the vulnerability of indigenous populations, which impacts their lifestyle [21].

The aim of this study is to explore the bibliographic characteristics and content of the articles [22]. Bibliometric analysis refers to a statistical evaluation of published scientific papers, books, or book chapters, and is an effective method for determining a publication's impact in the scientific community [23-25]. This paper investigates the presence of the first paper published in 2020 up to the most recent paper published in 2022 in ten ASEAN countries that conducted research on community livelihood during COVID-19. This paper focuses on three keywords: community livelihood, COVID-19, and ASEAN countries. Hence, the objective of this study is to survey scientific literature to uncover general trends and analyse indicators related to community livelihood during COVID-19. This study also serves as a foundation for future research on community livelihood during COVID-19.

3.1 Publication trend

The bibliographic analysis of 101 livelihood during COVID-19 pandemic articles revealed on the Scopus database that the first article was published in 2020 or one year after COVID-19 spread worldwide (see Figure 2). In 2021, a lot of publication related to livelihood was written by researcher (75 articles) and until May 2022, around 13 articles were written in 10 ASEAN Countries.

3.2 Distribution of journals and highly cited articles

The sample in this paper was drawn from ASEAN country search results for the keywords "livelihood" and "COVID-19," and it included 101 articles with 721 citations. The most influential journals in this paper are defined as the top 11 journals in two categories: the journal with the most articles (Table 1) and the journal with the most citations (Table 2). The top rank, as well as the appearance of several journals in these two categories, are the emphasis of this research. PLoS ONE (United States), Parks (Switzerland), Asian Fisheries Science (Malaysia), Marine Policy (United Kingdom) and Ocean and Coastal Management (United Kingdom) as the Five journals delivering competent research which regularly featured in the two categories of the most important journals. Furthermore, the results obtained using the VOS Viewer analysis were nearly identical. The network considers PloS ONE as a significant journal. The five journals were extracted from distinct clusters, with each cluster being represented by one journal (see Figure 3).

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Figure 2. Publication trends

Table 1. Influential journals based on number of articles

Table 2. Influential journals based on number of citations

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Figure 3. Citation network among journals (links)

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Figure 4. Overlay visualization of co-authorship

Table 3. Most highest author’s paper

Table 4. Most highest author’s citation

3.3 Influential author

The technique of co-authorship analysis is used to determine the collaborative ties that exist between authors, affiliated institutions, and countries. The 101 papers in the dataset were written by 575 different authors. The fractional counting approach was used to construct a visual map of co-authorship, with the minimum number of articles for an author set to two and eleven authors reaching the criteria. Figure 4 depicts five networks of authors who have collaborated on the publication of papers on the topic. Although co-authorship analysis can uncover collaborative links, it may not offer comprehensive insights into the nature or quality of these partnerships. To gain a deeper understanding, supplementary qualitative analysis may be necessary.

Table 3 shows that the eleven most influential authors are divided into two groups. The author influencer related to highest document on community livelihood research in ASEAN countries are Muawanah U form Japan were the QP is 18.50, The second influencer author is Kasan N.A from Malaysia were the QP is 13.50 and third author is Lau j. from Singapore. Moreover, the five most-cited authors were Wang, C., Harris, J., Hoang, A.T., Asamoah, J.K.K. (see Table 4).

3.4 Author’s contributions based on their countries of origin

According to the database, fifteen ASEAN countries are conducting COVID-19-related livelihood research. In terms of international cooperation, a visual map of nation co-authorship linkages was created to demonstrate partnership patterns and nations with the most publications on the subject. To create a more informative map, partial counting methods were used, with the minimum number of publications for each nation set at three. Eleven of the 72 nations in the sample satisfied the requirements. As illustrated in Figure 5, the United States is the biggest node, signifying the country with the most articles.

Furthermore, the map is divided into two clusters of countries where scholars collaborated on publications: (i) Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Kenya, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States; and (ii) Bangladesh, China, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam. These clusters imply increased collaboration within continents and decreased collaboration across geographical borders.

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Figure 5. Co-authorship analysis network map on countries

But if we identify the majority of the author's research related community livelihood during COVID-19 in ASEAN Countries came from Indonesia, there are around 39 publications in the Scopus database, and Malaysia is the second most prolific author with 31 papers (Figure 6).

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Figure 6. Stick bar graph author country publisher

3.5 Bibliographic coupling analysis

This sort of study looks at the bibliographic patterns of one article that is cited by two others. The purpose of bibliographic coupling is to acquire a more accurate picture of the present status of the study topic [33]. This set of bibliographies looks at four analytical units: publications, articles references, and organization.

Wang et al. [34] have written the article title “The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on physical and mental health of Asians: A study of seven middle-income countries in Asia” in the years of 2021 in PLoS ONE which has 102 citations. The second most cited article by Hoang et al. [35] was “Impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the global energy system and the transition to renewable energy: Opportunities, challenges, and policy implications” in 2021 in Energy Policy journal, which has 63 citations and Harris et al. [36] has 66 cited in 2020, which article title is "food system disruption: initial livelihood and dietary effects of COVID-19 on vegetable producers in India" (see Table 5).

3.6 Co-citation analysis

The conceptual structure of a research subject is mapped out using co-citation analysis, which is based on the interconnection of cited authors, sources, and references [37]. The citation analysis, in particular, takes into account the references indicated in the 101-paper sample. As a consequence, a co-citation link shows that both things are referenced in the same text.

Due to the tiny sample size of the current study, a co-citation analysis is effective in finding significant publications, journals, and authors in the research domain. The analysis of 4.760 cited references yielded 12 that met the threshold using the full counting method and a minimum number of citations for a cited reference of two (see Figure 7). The three most frequently cited references were: Ceballos, F., Kannan, S., Kramer, B. [38] (total link strength: 3); Laborde, D., Martin, W., Swinnen, J., Vos, R. [38] (2) and World Bank [39] (2).

In terms of cited journals, a co-citation analysis was performed using a full counting method. A co-citation analysis of referenced journals was done using a complete counting approach. The minimum number of citations required for a journal was set at 25, resulting in six cited journals and a more relevant network analysis of the referenced journals. Figure 8 shows that the most cited journals were Nature (124 citations), Science (109), and PloS One (105).

Table 5. Top 15 articles on “community livelihood during COVID-19” with the most citations

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Figure 7. Density visualization of the co-citation analysis on cited papers

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Figure 8. Co-citation analysis network map on cited journals

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Figure 9. The co-citation analysis on authors' network map

In terms of co-cited authors, all of the authors cited in the sample of 101 papers were subjected to a co-citation analysis. The minimum number of citations for an author was set at 16, resulting in a four-author co-citation network (see Figure 9). Belton (64 citations), Reardon, T. (44 citations), Bennet, N.J. (29 citations), and Bene, C. (27).

3.7 Keywords analysis

3.7.1 Author keyword analysis

Author keywords are keywords that scholars provide that best represent the main idea of an article [40]. As a consequence, an analysis of the prevalence of author keywords was performed in order to appreciate the emphasis of the studies and concerns addressed in the COVID-19 study on community livelihood. The complete counting approach was utilized, and each keyword's occurrence was set to two, resulting in 338 author keywords, 38 of which fulfilled the keyword criterion.

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Figure 10. Overlay visualization of the occurrence of author keywords

3.7.2 Co-occurrence of keyword analysis

By finding the links between terms and the frequency of two or more keywords that appear together in the same literature, keyword co-occurrence analysis can be used to understand the research status and trends in a certain topic. The full counting method was used for keyword co-occurrence analysis (including both author and index keywords), yielding 830 keywords, of which 152 were chosen for analysis.

In network visualization (Figure 10), community livelihood during COVID-19 in ASEAN nations literature was divided into 5 clusters based on chronological order, with cluster 1 (red) being the most closely connected to the theme of community livelihood during COVID-19 pandemic. The keywords in cluster 1 are: adaptive management, aquaculture, coping strategy, developing world, diet, economic aspect, epidemic, fishery, food and nutrition security, food availability, food chain, food production, food security, food supply, food system, gender, macroeconomics, natural resources, peat land, perception, policy, poverty, risk assessment, smallholder, social capital, spatiotemporal analysis, supply chain management, sustainability, value chain, vulnerability. Moreover, topic related to food become most prominent keyword related to livelihood during COVID-19 pandemic in ASEAN countries. The top five most popular keywords in terms of total link strength were COVID-19 (occurrences: 63; total link strength: 382), pandemic (23, 382), livelihood (20; 121), resilience (12; 72) and human (11; 211).

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Figure 11. Network visualization of the occurrence of author keywords

Four groups are revealed by the visual map of keyword co-occurrence (see Figure 11). The size of the nodes indicates the keyword weight; the connections between nodes represent keyword co-occurrence; and the thickness of the linkages and the distance between two nodes show the frequency of keyword co-occurrence. According to Figure 12, the next future related to community adaptation during COVID-19 is divided into four clusters. The future research relate to community adaptation were classified become 4 cluster for future research.

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Figure 12. Density visualization of keyword co-occurrence

The first cluster related to 13 keywords: migrant worker’s children, economic growth, impact, aviation sector, containment and health policy, evaluating meaning, android, content and cultural analysis, bipartite network, closed fishing season, energy transition, co-operatives, agar, cost-effectiveness analysis. The second future research cluster related to 7 keywords: COVID-19 epidemic, socio-economic impacts, 7 lakes, civic right, behavior change, Chinese workers, dive tourism. Third future research cluster related to 5 Keywords, there are commercial crops, coastal livelihood, food security, technology, pandemic resilience. The fort future research related to 9 keywords, there are social capital, agroforestry, food system, health policy, coastal communities, preventive behavior, developing countries, street vendor, change management.