Livelihood Crisis Research Articles

Empathy and Innovation: Rethinking Social Work Interventions to Address the Livelihood Crisis in Prisoner Families

Empathy and Innovation: Rethinking Social Work Interventions to Address the Livelihood Crisis in Prisoner Families

Study on Livelihood Crisis and Socio-economic Condition of Tea Garden Workers in Dooars of West Bengal

The tea industry in India is one of the most important agro-based industries in terms of generating local employment and earning foreign exchange. The state of West Bengal (WB) contributes the majority of tea produced in India. The Doors region, which is located in the Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar districts of WB, is home to several tea estates where the majority of tea is grown, produced, and processed. The terrain of Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar, which are located at foothills of the Eastern Himalaya, is dotted with hundreds of verdant green tea gardens and several meandering rivers. The tea gardens are located throughout these two districts and employ a sizable portion of the local population, who are mostly from rural areas and heavily represented in the SC and ST communities. There is a total of 64 tea gardens in the Alipurduar District and 120 tea gardens in the Jalpaiguri District. However, a serious humanitarian catastrophe and several other serious crises still exist behind the scenes in the production of this well-known beverage. Over the past few decades, owing to various socio-economic factors, many tea gardens in Dooars region have been abandoned or shut down. Due to their usual sources of income being lost, the tea garden workers are now at great risk of starvation and malnutrition, putting them in a state of dire socioeconomic calamity. There are hardly any alternative employment opportunities for the jobless tea workers in and around the locality except irregular jobs such as stone crushing, tree leaves collection, daily labour in urban and semi-urban localities etc. As reported, workers are now feeling unconfident regarding their livelihood security in the tea gardens of Dooars. Due to the catastrophic consequences, a considerable segment of the tea garden labour force is presently relocating to other states to sustain their livelihoods. A thorough field study was conducted to evaluate the socioeconomic conditions of the tea garden workers in Dooars and to pinpoint their current livelihood crisis. It also aimed to identify the various factors those were responsible for their current lack of livelihood security, as well as the primary factors that drove their tendency to migrate away from the Dooars tea gardens where they were employed for generations. It was also recommended that in order to maintain the Dooars tea industry in West Bengal, necessary corrective action be taken to eliminate the livelihood migration propensity of the tea garden workers in the region and to enhance their socioeconomic conditions.

Exploring Internal Reverse Migration Patterns in Cumilla District, Bangladesh: A Case Study During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The study possesses two-fold objectives: first, to explain the nature of internal reverse migration in Bangladesh during the COVID-19 pandemic, and second, to explore the push-pull factors of it. This study used a qualitative analysis tool and conducted 04 case studies and 10 In-depth interviews of reverse migrants for case study-based analysis. the study found that the pandemic triggered the reverse migration of informal workers, particularly female workers. Livelihood crisis, food insecurity, unexpected shocks, health insecurity, low living costs, and fear of infection are push-pull factors of reverse migration during COVID-19. Furthermore, these push-pull factors have motivated informal workers to migrate from urban to rural areas during COVID-19. The findings recommend that policymakers should address the vulnerability of informal workers in policy decisions. Policymakers should introduce new programs, i.e., social protection, and emergency economic schemes to provide support to the informal workers during emergencies like COVID-19.

How a low income state of India managed the unemployment situation during COVID-19? Lessons for future pandemic management.

The partial and complete lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19 caused enormous economic and social disruptions throughout the world. India witnessed the sharpest decline in its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and the unemployment rate rose sharply in the first quarter of 2020-21. Odisha, one of the low income states of India, has faced a steep rise in unemployment, with lakhs of migrant workers returning to the state. This article attempts to examine Odisha's unemployment situation compared to the low-income states of India as well as with the national average during COVID-19. This also investigates to what extent the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) provided relief to the people by providing short-term employment opportunities. This is a descriptive study and is based upon repetitive cross sectional secondary data on unemployment rate and labour force participation rate across the low-income states of India. The study used descriptive statistics to analyze the secondary data from the Center for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) and MGNREGA report. The labour force participation rate (LFPR) and unemployment rate (UER) data were collected from the CMIE trimester reports. The information related to number days of employment demanded and employment provided were collected from the MGNREGA reports. Total time period was divided in to two parts - 2017-19 pre pandemic period and 2020-2021 pandemic period. The analysis of UER revealed that the unemployment situation in Odisha was better than the low-income states and overall India. The UER during COVID-19 (Sep-Dec 2020 to Sep-Dec 2021) was lower than the pre COVID-19 level in Odisha (1.6% in Sep-Dec 2020), compared to all India, where this was more than the pre-COVID-19 level (7.4% in Sep-Dec 2020). Odisha government had nearly doubled the employment generation through MGNREGA during 2020-21.The state government undertook a number of proactive measures - increasing wage rate, providing extra days of work in vulnerable districts to address the unemployment situation during the pandemic. The state government's effort to manage the livelihood crisis was notable during the pandemic.. Proper implementation of the wage employment programmes led to higher decline in the UER in Odisha compared to other states These experiences can be emulated by other states or countries.

Ecological livelihoods of farmers and pollinators in the Himalayas: Doing critical physical geography using citizen science

In farming communities dependent on the cultivation of pollinator‐dependent crops, the livelihoods of farmers are inextricably linked with pollinator health. A global pollination crisis interlinked with a crisis of food production and farmer livelihoods, exacerbated by processes of socio‐environmental change, is emblematic of the Anthropocene and of the kinds of ecosocial problems with which critical physical geography (CPG) engages. We propose examining the farmer‐pollinator system in the Indian Himalayas through an ecological livelihoods approach using a range of collaborative citizen science methods including bloom observations to document pollinator visits, plant phenological observations to document year‐round floral resource availability, and farm diaries to document orchard management practices. An ecological livelihoods approach draws on posthumanist theory, which has remained largely disengaged with methodological questions that are of concern to CPG. Citizen science, although widely used across a range of disciplines, has seen limited engagement in CPG. After elaborating some of the opportunities and challenges that an engagement between CPG, posthumanist theory, and citizen science opens up, we propose a methodology that would be simultaneously epistemological (understanding interdependence between livelihoods of farmers and pollinators) and ontological (imagining and building worlds where farmer and pollinator habitats are recomposed).

In the shadow of the mountain: the crisis of precarious livelihoods in high altitude mountaineering tourism

This article focuses on the crisis of precarious work/livelihoods that pervades the global tourism industry and prevents many from experiencing fair and just employment. Drawing on an ethnographic study of high-altitude mountaineering tourism in the Himalaya, we explore the various ways in which mountain workers are precarious, vulnerable, marginalised and often overlooked in the context of cross-border tourism practices. Drawing on concepts of justice and fairness we argue that the ongoing racial and social contours of colonialism give privileges to some bodies and not “Others,” entrenching precarity of vulnerable communities and workers. However, despite these unfavourable conditions, local workers are not without agency to shape their conditions and experiences. Mountain workers on Everest provide an example of how, despite their precarity, workers can self-organise and exercise their voice to secure more just and equitable work. Decent work, secure livelihoods, and equality are core features of the sustainable development goals and will only be achieved through collective action, solidarity from different tourism stakeholders and the realisation of fair and just employment practices for the most vulnerable communities.

Disaster, demographics, and vulnerability: Interrogating the long‐term effects of an extreme weather event

AbstractClimate risk events act on existing inequalities, causing unequal damage across social groups and showing that established vulnerability should be a key consideration in preventing and mitigating the consequences of weather extremes. The disastrous snowfalls that affected Asturias in Northern Spain in the winter of 1888 provide an intriguing and useful historical example of why such consideration is vital. This article is based on analysis of church records and population censuses of 22 mountain parishes over a 21‐year period. It examines the long‐term sociodemographic impacts of that weather event and reveals dramatic changes in fertility, mortality, and nuptiality. Marriages and births decreased by 67% in the 2 years following the snowstorms, when the highest levels of mortality were reached. The excess mortality especially affected those adults over 70, infants under 5, and, most notably, women. A livelihood crisis was at the base of these long‐term effects. Those demographic impacts point to the event’s severity and show that the repercussions of a disaster go far beyond deaths and material losses and are deeply rooted in social factors. These findings reinforce the idea that reconstructing old disastrous episodes is of great social and scientific interest now. That is because, as governments and others are progressively paying more attention to the possibilities of adaptation to global change, there is greater appreciation of the fact that delving into the long‐term impacts of past natural disasters can guide our main future strategies.

Risk of COVID-19 Transmission and Livelihood Challenges of Stranded Migrant Labourers during Lockdown in India

The lockdown during the first phase of COVID-19 pandemic in India triggered an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Labourers in the informal sector lost their jobs overnight and were stuck at their work places. The present study examines the risk of COVID-19 transmission among stranded migrant labourers and their livelihood challenges during the lockdown. A telephonic survey was conducted during the lockdown of first wave of COVID-19 pandemic to collect information from the stranded migrant labourers. The non-probability snowball sampling technique and structured questionnaire were used to draw the sample. Simple frequency distribution and standard statistical methods were used to accomplish the study objectives. The factors of COVID-19 transmission such as poor housing, co-morbidities, poor practice of WASH and COVID-19 precautions were significantly high among the migrant labourers. The lockdown created livelihood crisis among them. For instance, ration shortage (86%), financial distress (82%), reduction of wages (13%), job loss (86%) and anxiety for COVID-19 infection (81%) were often seen. Many of the labourers did not receive any ration kits (30%) and financial assistance (86%) during lockdown. The governmental assistance to overcome the stranded migrant labourers’ challenges during lockdown was less than desirable. India needs to frame a sustainable and effective policy for social security for labourers, particularly in emergency situations.

Riders on the Storm: Amplified Platform Precarity and the Impact of COVID-19 on Online Food-delivery Drivers in China

ABSTRACT The global COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately intensified the precariousness of insecure work. This article examines the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on platform-based food-delivery drivers in China, particularly focusing on labor conditions. Drawing on 52 in-depth interviews with drivers from top Chinese food-delivery platforms, this article shows that the precarity of drivers’ work and life is dramatically amplified by the pandemic, resulting in escalating work insecurity, financial instability, and subservient class identity. More specifically, drivers struggle with increased physical risks, livelihood crisis and inflamed racism. All this results from the reorganization of algorithmic labor process and management facilitated by the coalition of food-delivery platforms and Chinese states, which results in surged workload, unpaid labor, uncompensated prolonged production time and extra investment in production assets.

Impact of COVID-19 on Ready-made Garments Workers in Bangladesh

COVID-19 is an overwhelming crisis that has touched almost every sector. As the Ready-made Garments (RMG) sector is closely integrated with the global supply chain, it is important to understand the implications of COVID-19 on RMG workers as they are the most vulnerable in this situation. This article aims to explore the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic on RMG workers in Bangladesh. Particularly, it investigates the impact on health, safety and security, employment, livelihood, and social relations of the workers. The research also explores the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in this regard. The study followed qualitative methodology. The primary data were collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, and key informant interviews. The findings revealed that COVID-19 faced detrimental consequences in terms of health, safety and security, and social relations. The workers also faced a livelihood crisis as their earnings were curtailed.

Corrigendum

OceaniaVolume 91, Issue 1 p. 136-136 CorrigendumFree Access Corrigendum This article corrects the following: COVID-19 and Fiji: A Case Study Mohseen Riaz Ud Dean, Volume 90Issue S1Oceania pages: 96-106 First Published online: December 16, 2020 First published: 13 January 2021 https://doi.org/10.1002/ocea.5287AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat In Dean (2020), the Author Biography section was omitted. The text is given below: Mohseen Riaz Ud Dean is currently working with the UNDP Accelerator Lab, Pacific office based in Suva, Fiji, as Head of Community Research and Ethnographic Solutions Mapping. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Waikato in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Mohseen’s cross-disciplinary PhD thesis drew upon the agronomic, ecological, and social sciences to analyze the current crisis in the Fijian sugar industry. It focused particularly on the livelihood crisis faced by smallholder sugarcane growers and explored the potential of local and traditional farming knowledge to address this crisis. Mohseen also holds a M.Sc in Environmental Sciences from Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, a Post Graduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching, and a B.Sc in Environmental Science from the University of the South Pacific. Before joining the UNDP, Mohseen worked as an academic at Fiji National University. The online version of the article has been corrected. Reference Dean, M.R.U. 2020. COVID-19 and Fiji: A Case Study. Oceania 90(S1): 96- 106. Volume91, Issue1March 2021Pages 136-136 ReferencesRelatedInformation

COVID‐19 and Fiji: A Case Study

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Regional disparities of growth and internal migrant workers in informal sectors in the age of COVID-19.

Why does the migrated worker face with the crisis of livelihoods in general and informal sectors in India, particularly during the age of corona? Migrant workers in informal sectors constitute a major percentage of total workforces in India, who have contributed for the economic development. Due to the overlapping nature of migration, it would not be possible to estimate the exact numbers of migrated people in India. This article is an attempt to discuss about how workers are deprived in informal sectors. Again, the study also discusses how, in the age of coronavirus pandemic, millions of workers, faced with higher form of informalistion, faced with the threat of survival. Secondary data are used as methodology. This article argues that, in India, maximum numbers of workers, who migrated from poor Human Development Index (HDI)‐scored states to high HDI‐scored states, faced with higher informalistion of their jobs, due to deprivation from basic rights in the age of Corona.

Entitlements, Capabilities, and Crisis in the United Kingdom

This paper examines whether Amartya Sen’s entitlements and capabilities concepts can be transferred in their application from low-income countries to high-income countries, specifically Cumbria, Northern England. Originally used to understand the causes of famine, these concepts have previously been used in several different geographical contexts to broadly understand poverty and inequality but almost entirely in low-income countries. This paper applies these concepts to a United Kingdom context in an attempt to understand the causes of poverty and inequality among people experiencing “livelihood crisis.” The research uses data from two nongovernmental social welfare projects to examine the causes of crisis and the remedial effects of the intervention. Our findings indicate that these concepts can help to explain how people find themselves in crisis in Cumbria. On a broader level, they can also be used to explain poverty, inequality, and disadvantage in communities in the United Kingdom. The authors put forward that entitlements and capabilities provide a useful framework to advance the policy and political debate on the causes of poverty by providing a straightforward language and broad application. Entitlement and capabilities can also assist social welfare programs in framing their aims and objectives and through improved understanding about the causes of inequality, will be better able to support people out of disadvantage by strengthening entitlements and building capabilities, without the necessity of large-scale investment.

Riders on the Storm: Amplified Platform Precarity and the Impact of COVID-19 on Online Food-delivery Drivers in China

The global COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately intensified the precariousness of insecure work. This article examines the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on platform-based food-delivery drivers in China, particularly focusing on labour conditions. Drawing on 52 in-depth interviews with food-delivery drivers from top Chinese food-delivery platforms, this article shows that the precarity of drivers’ work and life is dramatically amplified by the pandemic, resulting in escalating work insecurity, financial instability, and subservient class identity. More Specifically, drivers struggle with increased physical risks, livelihood crisis and inflamed racism. All this results from the reorganisation of the algorithmic labour process and management facilitated by the coalition of food-delivery platforms and Chinese states, which results in surged workload, unpaid labour, uncompensated prolonged production time and extra investment in production assets.

Fisher communities in transition: understanding change from a livelihood perspective in Chilika Lagoon, India

The sustainable livelihood framework is a widely used approach to analyze changes in rural livelihoods, especially in resource dependent communities. The framework emphasizes that given a certain situation where the livelihood context, resources and institutions remain favourable, livelihood strategies carried out by people could possibly lead to two different outcomes. One, the results of livelihood strategies will produce sustainable outcomes providing affected households respite from the impacts of livelihood loss. Two, there is a possibility that resulting outcomes may not be sufficient to reverse livelihood crisis and may not necessarily result in sustainable livelihood because of the complexities, uncertainties and multilevel drivers associated with it. This paper aims to evaluate both these possibilities through use of empirical data to clarify factors and conditions that may impede sustainable livelihood outcomes despite well planned strategies. It highlights that availability of more resources (or capitals) do not necessarily contribute to more robust livelihood strategies or outcomes. Using the case of small scale fishery-based livelihood system of Chilika Lagoon, Bay of Bengal in the East coast of India, this paper suggests that the relationship between livelihood shocks and stresses, capitals, institutions and livelihood strategies is circular and not linear.Extensive household and village level survey data are used to examine the processes of social-ecological change in Chilika from a livelihood perspective. It describes how through changes in context, resources and institutions, fishers in Chilika responded to the livelihood crisis, and how various strategies were used. It further examines the extent to which the outcomes of the strategies contributed to making fisher livelihoods sustainable. Conclusions drawn suggest that the outcomes of the livelihood crisis and responses from Chilika fishers have resulted in higher levels of their disconnection from the Lagoon and their marginalization. The multiplicity of ways through which fishers in Chilika perceive their livelihood suggest that livelihood in resource dependent communities, such as Chilika small-scale fisheries, is multidimensional and far more complex and dynamic than often perceived. Further innovations in approaches and tools will help better understand livelihood challenges and make related outcomes sustainable.

Legacies of ‘madiro’? Worker-peasantry, livelihood crisis and ‘siziphile’ land occupations in semi-arid north-western Zimbabwe

AbstractThis paper examines acts of land ‘self-provisioning’ (‘siziphile’ land occupations) and ‘radical land restitution’ (of land previously annexed from people by the local authority for a pilot grazing project) by villagers in a communal area in Lupane District in north-western Zimbabwe. Situating these occurrences within the wider and historical context of ‘madiro’ (freedom farming and unauthorised development of settlements) and Matabeleland land politics and semi-proletarianisation, it stresses the livelihood history of households, the disappointments with local job opportunities and destruction of urban-based livelihoods in a crumbling economy, and the accompanying crisis of communal area agriculture. It concludes that these factors provided a real threat to semi-proletarianisation. By self-provisioning of the land the overriding concern of villagers was to maintain a certain level of livelihood survival, even if it was at odds with their livelihood strategies, while they sought opportunities to maintain semi-proletarianisation.

Climatic Hazards and Social Crisis: A Quick Mitigation Approach to Accelerate Sustainable Development

Climate change and its negative consequences frequently impede to social development through mal-structural function of socioeconomic status but prospective mitigation approach may accelerate to social sustainability. This paper investigates to existing climatic hazards along with functional damage in a society that, how climatic hazards make vulnerable to the social people and evolve a new mitigation pathway to rescue from food insecurities in the community. Depending on observational status, it has been drawn an overall thematic citation and outline regarding with the respondents perception. In the study area, maximum number of people were found to be highly affected owing to long term climatic shocks which is appeared as a social disaster in the aspects of poor socioeconomic status and livelihood crisis. To get sustainability, it is very important to reduce the degree of climatic risk through evolving new technique or technological advancement as to operational feature. As an operational tools, sustainable social clustering technique would be very much effective to search out the more climatic vulnerable people from the communities. Its suggestive policy could be helpful to take the initiatives for the special caring regarding with the need basis insecure people. In addition, better understanding and outstanding results would be effective to cope with climatic shocks and social crisis.

“Never at ease”: cellphones, multilocational households, and the metabolic rift in western Kenya

Western Kenya has been a labour-exporting region for over a century, with many households straddling both rural and urban contexts. While the spatial separation of migrants from their rural places of origin represented the first tangible metabolic rift within Kenyan agricultural production systems, that rift is being reshaped as rural families engage in new forms of interconnection with migrant members (“multilocationality”). These changes appear to be driven by the ongoing crisis of agrarian livelihoods and are supported by the advent of cellphone communication and mobile money transfer technologies. Interviews and ethnographic data collected in a western Kenyan community and amongst its out-migrants reveal the role of cellphones in mediating social, financial, and knowledge flows within multilocational households. The increased ease of communicating and sending money is associated with less frequent physical movements between rural and urban settings, with commensurate disruptions in the acquisition and development of agro-ecological knowledge, and a shifting burden of agricultural labour. Gender relations are also put under further stress: migrant men remain (or believe they have remained) involved in rural affairs but appear to be using cellphone technologies to reinvent their household roles, replacing previously social or labour contributions with financial ones and by asserting claims over the on-farm decision-making of rural households previously considered female-headed.

Handloom Industry in Uttar Pradesh: Major Challenges and Prospects

The handloom sector embodies the rich traditional, historical and cultural diversity that distinguishes India from the rest of the world. It has been sustained by transferring skills from one generation to another. This industry is one of the oldest industries in India and provided livelihood to millions of rural people across the country for centuries. However, it was reduced to ashes during the colonial rule by the entry of cheap and quality clothes made in the mills of England, but after independence, it started reviving due to the government interventions. Today, in the country, handloom production is the second largest employment-generating activity after agriculture and it contributes nearly 14% share of the total production of textile industry. But at the present time, this industry is facing multifarious problems that some other industries do not have. The government of India is consistently pursuing to bring about improvement in the productivity and marketing of handloom sector; still it can be seen that weavers are facing severe livelihood crisis. To make the industry profitable, the problems should be identified as well as the strength and weaknesses should be estimated. In this regard, the present article analyses the challenges and opportunities before the handloom industry, especially in the state of Uttar Pradesh and suggests for remedies to strengthen its position in the economy.