Growing Precarity, Circular Migration, and the Lockdown in India

Srivastava, Ravi

doi:10.1007/s41027-020-00260-3

Cited by 44 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 1 publication

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“…In India, due to a scarcity of jobs in rural areas and growing agrarian distress, an estimated 100 million people are regularly away from their homes, working as labourers in the construction and manufacturing industries in urban industrialized centres of the country. With the sudden announcement of a lockdown, these migrant workers found themselves overnight with no source of income and no means to travel back to their homes ( Srivastava, 2020a ). They soon ran out of food and cash, and, as revealed by the intensity of SOS cries for help on the Gram Vaani Interactive Voice IVR platforms, the food kits and community kitchens run by the government soon proved inadequate.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The first 100 days: how has COVID-19 affected poor and vulnerable groups in India?

Johri

Agarwal

Khullar³

et al. 2021

Health Promotion International

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Summary In India, strict public health measures to suppress COVID-19 transmission and reduce burden have been rapidly adopted. Pandemic containment and confinement measures impact societies and economies; their costs and benefits must be assessed holistically. This study provides an evolving portrait of the health, economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable populations in India. Our analysis focuses on 100 days early in the pandemic from 13 March to 20 June 2020. We developed a conceptual framework based on the human right to health and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We analysed people’s experiences recorded and shared via mobile phone on the voice platforms operated by the Gram Vaani COVID-19 response network, a service for rural and low-income populations now being deployed to support India’s COVID-19 response. Quantitative and visual methods were used to summarize key features of the data and explore relationships between factors. In its first 100 days, the platform logged over 1.15 million phone calls, of which 793 350 (69%) were outbound calls related largely to health promotion in the context of COVID-19. Analysis of 6636 audio recordings by network users revealed struggles to secure the basic necessities of survival, including food (48%), cash (17%), transportation (10%) and employment or livelihoods (8%). Themes were mapped to shortfalls in 10 SDGs and their associated targets. Pre-existing development deficits and weak social safety nets are driving vulnerability during the COVID-19 crisis. For an effective pandemic response and recovery, these must be addressed through inclusive policy design and institutional reforms.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The first 100 days: how has COVID-19 affected poor and vulnerable groups in India?

Johri

Agarwal

Khullar³

et al. 2021

Health Promotion International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Thousands of migrant laborers walking bare feet, without water and food, holding their belongings in a small bag became the most recognizable visual of what was termed as the migrant crisis (Bapuji et al, 2020;R. Das & Kumar, 2020;Ghosh, 2020;Srivastava, 2020). These migrant workers had suffered income losses during the lockdown and could no longer afford the rent for their rooms or place of dwelling, which pushed them to find their way back home to their villages (Nayar, 2020;Ray & Subramanian, 2020;Sengupta & Jha, 2020).…”

Section: Walking Through the Pandemicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Where is my home?: Gendered precarity and the experience of COVID‐19 among women migrant workers from Delhi and National Capital Region, India

Arora

Majumder

2021

Gender Work & Organization

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With growing interest in the lives of individuals and communities during the COVID‐19 pandemic, there is consensus among scholars, academicians, and policy makers that the pandemic has had unequal impacts on different sections of the society. The dominant idea that “we are in this together” needs to be critically unpacked to understand the differential impact of the same pandemic on people with varied vulnerabilities. The concept of “intersectional vulnerability” has been key to understanding the unequal distribution of the pandemic risk. Using a gendered intersectional lens, this paper aims to understand the lived experiences of migrant women workers during the pandemic and their narratives of gendered inequality. Through a narrative study in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR), India, from May to October 2020, this study brings out stories of precarity faced by five migrant women while battling the social, psychological, and economic effects of the pandemic. Loss of livelihood, home, savings, and prospects of a better future shape the narratives of these women. The pandemic exacerbated the already precarious positions of these women by creating a situation where—(a) patriarchal structures were further reinforced, and (b) losing gender solidarity and companionship through lockdown and social distancing.

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“…The COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to cause chronic psychological manifestations like depression, anxiety, panic disorder and psychosomatic manifestations (Qiu et al, 2020;Rajan et al, 2020). The COVID-19 lockdown in India has created an anomalous humanitarian crisis for internal migrants (Srivastava, 2020). With the aforementioned studies, some questions arising to a general mind are as follows.…”

Section: Covid-19 and Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The COVID-19-Led Reverse Migration on Labour Supply in Rural Economy: Challenges, Opportunities and Road Ahead in Odisha

Behera

Mishra²,

Behera

2021

The Indian Economic Journal

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Migration is a bigger option for earning and livelihood in Odisha either for push factors or pull factors, for which people move to other states in search of work and better wages. But COVID-19 emerged as a crippling blow for which huge reverse migration is being noticed in the state. So the study tried to investigate labour supply and employment opportunity in rural areas due to COVID-19-led reverse migration and to examine the impact of COVID-19 on employment status, income profile and livelihood of returned migrants in Odisha. The study also discusses the possible measures to create alternative livelihood by rebuilding the rural economy after COVID-19. Both secondary and primary data are used in the study. Descriptive statistics and regression model are used in the study to examine the vulnerability of migrants during the period of COVID-19. The study found a sudden rise in labour supply with a huge scale is catch sight of the rural economy of Odisha. Job loss is the biggest problem faced by migrants followed by income loss. The study found that income of migrants, household income excluding migrants and nature of work have significant impact on the vulnerability of migrants. JEL Classification Codes: J21, J22, J46

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Growing Precarity, Circular Migration, and the Lockdown in India

Cited by 44 publications

References 1 publication

The first 100 days: how has COVID-19 affected poor and vulnerable groups in India?

The first 100 days: how has COVID-19 affected poor and vulnerable groups in India?

Where is my home?: Gendered precarity and the experience of COVID‐19 among women migrant workers from Delhi and National Capital Region, India

The COVID-19-Led Reverse Migration on Labour Supply in Rural Economy: Challenges, Opportunities and Road Ahead in Odisha

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