Governance shapes small-scale livelihood multifunctionality: evidence from global fisheries

Small-scale livelihood systems are recognized for simultaneously providing subsistence, employment, and income to the same communities and households. Small-scale fisheries exemplify this multifunctionality, deriving a comparative advantage over industrial fleets that maximize single-output efficiency. Yet prevailing frameworks acknowledge these multiple outcomes without operationalizing their interdependencies, leaving undiagnosed whether livelihood functions operate as a coupled system or in isolation. We introduce Functional Integrity—adapted from ecological integrity—to diagnose whether a livelihood system’s multiple functions operate as a coherent whole, operationalized through Level (average performance) and Balance (cross-functional evenness). Applied to 136 national fisheries systems as a diagnostic window on small-scale-anchored livelihood configurations, using five dimensions from the Illuminating Hidden Harvests and Ocean Health Index datasets, we find no significant trade-offs after controlling for GDP: all partial correlations are positive, although zero-order coupling strength varies across dimensions, and countries cluster into four distinct functional profiles. Governance quality is the most consistent positive institutional predictor of functional integrity, reaching conventional significance in Models A–C and remaining marginal in Model D (p = 0.054), with its association clearest in Level. Export orientation is associated with lower Balance (p = 0.005) without lowering Level, tilting livelihood profiles toward greater unevenness while leaving overall performance intact. Small-scale employment share shows no independent effect (p = 0.603). These findings suggest that the multifunctional realization of small-scale livelihoods is more institutionally conditioned than structurally guaranteed in these cross-national models, with implications for other contexts where multiple livelihood functions converge.