The Covid-19 pandemic has pushed some Indian households into difficult and often unsustainable coping strategies, resulting in a trade-off between immediate survival and long-term stability, according to a new study by researchers from Lancaster University and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IITK).
The study – Diverse Coping Strategies for Food Security: A Qualitative Study of Economically Unstable Households in India in the Context of Coronavirus – found that circular or new migrant workers and daily wage-dependent households were among the most affected, with limited alternative support systems available.
The research team spoke to 86 families between December 2022 and March 2023.
The study, published in PLOS One, interviewed families who made “impossible choices,” including skipping meals, delaying medical treatment, taking out loans and pulling children out of school to cover expenses. It investigated how vulnerable families who depend on daily wages are coping with Covid-19, which has disrupted their livelihoods.
The study stressed that government support through the public distribution system and local social networks played a crucial role in helping families deal with the crisis, especially those with limited ability to access alternative sources of income.
The research team conducted 343 interviews in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Goa. From these, a subset of households experiencing severe and long-term difficulties associated with COVID-19 was selected to understand the impact of the pandemic on various family members, including men, women and children aged seven years and above.
The study found that migration status and existing structural inequalities, such as poverty, critically affect households’ resilience. Resilience during COVID-19 has depended less on loss of income than on access to government support and social networks, both of which have rarely been available to migrant workers, especially recent migrants.
Emphasizing the interconnectedness between rural and urban economies, the study discusses how COVID-19 has sparked a wave of reverse migration (the return of migrants to their places of origin) to rural areas. This has created severe pressures on already stressed rural economies and exacerbated inequality.
As employment became irregular, the first strategies adopted by the interviewed households was to “reduce consumption.” This means switching to less preferred foods, reducing expensive items such as dairy and meat, and limiting portion sizes, with potatoes and grains becoming essential fallback options. The research says this raises serious concerns about the nutritional impacts of the pandemic.
Women, who often resorted to “maternal protection,” were particularly likely to internalize the effects of food scarcity themselves by reducing their meals to ensure that children and men had “enough.”
Families sharing their homes have begun to cook jointly to save cooking fuel and ensure that children do not go hungry. Some children were sent to live with grandparents or relatives when managing finances became difficult.
As lockdowns further put livelihoods at risk, more extreme strategies such as borrowing money for food, skipping meals, selling assets, and reverse migration to rural areas have been adopted.
Some urban migrants within the study settings assumed that they would have easier access to food in their rural homes due to existing agricultural stocks and social networks.
However, for those with limited resources, reverse migration has placed additional pressures on single-income individuals, making it more difficult for larger families to support.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian government has expanded support under the Public Distribution System – a major food security scheme that provides subsidized grains and other essential food items to eligible households.
Cereal allocations were doubled, and additional items such as oil and chickpeas were introduced to enhance dietary diversity. Supplementary schemes have also been launched to address growing food insecurity amid livelihood disruptions.
The research says these allocations were necessary to maintain access to food among vulnerable families during this period of crisis, highlighting the value of government support.
However, because PDS benefits are typically tied to place of registration, many migrant workers have been unable to access rations at their destination, reflecting long-standing challenges related to portability.
“In a world of increasing uncertainty, it is important to understand that household responses to global threats are not just about the crisis itself, but about the existing structural inequalities and vulnerabilities that people are already dealing with,” lead author Dr. Charumita Vasudev said in a statement.
“Public policies such as the public distribution system form the backbone of household resilience strategies. They must therefore take into account contextual vulnerabilities to ensure that short-term adaptation during crises does not deepen long-term inequality.”
