Intergenerational perceptions of household wellbeing in India’s Western and Eastern Ghats

Abstract

India is home to the largest number of people living in poverty in the world. To inform poverty alleviation strategies, we sought local insights on wellbeing trajectories from three generations of respondents in three communities in the Western and Eastern Ghats.An integrated thematic analysis was carried out using qualitative information from focus group discussions (FGDs) and a survey instrument. Overall, we found most households had a positive perspective regarding their wellbeing over time; when divided into research locations, the Odisha site (Jeypore) was the most optimistic, the Kerala site (Wayanad) had no consensus position, and the Tamil Nadu site (Kolli Hills) was most pessimistic. Scheduled tribe (ST) and non-ST households were similar in their wellbeing perceptions despite the ongoing social and economic marginalization of ST households. Common negative events experienced were health (death or alcoholism) and climate disasters (drought or flooding), and common positive events were asset inheritance or government schemes. An important insight was changing importance of events between generations: elder generations valued labour migration, interim generations valued asset inheritance, and the current generation valued government schemes. We conclude that significant events play a major role in wellbeing perceptions among these communities, and understanding the evolving forms of significant events between generations can provide insights towards designing effective poverty alleviation strategies for the future.