“…his condition was so bad, he was ill, and he was not taken to the hospital (he passed away) … I used to sell snacks all day… and throughout the day, I used to think I should collect enough money before I go home and bring painkillers to my father… feed him fruits etc. so that he becomes well as before…My father was very good. He never let me feel any dearth of anything… like shade from the sun.
We heard many such stories from families we interviewed between December 2022 and March 2023 about their experiences during COVID-19. What stood out was the fact that the pandemic did not create these vulnerabilities. It exposed them and sometimes exacerbated them—often with no solutions in sight and disastrous consequences.
Who or what can you fall back upon when life, as you know it, comes to screeching halt? We found this was the most critical question for vulnerable families who struggle to make ends meet in ‘normal times’. The answer often determines whether the household’s choices stayed temporary and reversible, or whether they were forced to take actions that would have lasting consequences for their wellbeing—that is, whether coping strategies became ‘erosive’.
Our study focussed on food insecurity, which refers to difficulties accessing enough food to support a healthy life. We examined how food related choices were made during the lockdown period. When livelihoods were disrupted, the families we interviewed first tried to manage with food compromises like reducing portion sizes and cutting back on more expensive foods like milk, meat, and eggs.
But lockdowns continued, savings eroded and incomes became more uncertain. Families were then forced to make increasingly difficult choices, including taking loans for food, delaying medical expenditures, and temporarily withdrawing children from school.
While some strategies are routine, especially in households relying on informal livelihoods, some more drastic steps were mandated by disruptions caused by COVID-19. These included women surviving on a bare minimum and skipping meals so that children could be fed and men could continue searching for jobs; sending children away to live with relatives temporarily while the adults tried to find alternate employment; and, for migrant workers, returning to their hometowns.
Some migrant workers tried to move back to their hometowns assuming food would not be a problem there. You might recall vivid images of this migration from urban to rural areas during COVID-19, as covered by popular media, including the movie Homebound—India’s official entry to the Oscars.
Our study, conducted in parts of Uttar Pradesh and Goa, found that this reverse migration exposed the existing vulnerabilities of both rural and urban economies.
Due to the limited jobs available in rural areas, migration to nearby urban areas has become a sustenance strategy, and multi-sited households have become increasingly common.
However, while people living in an area for a longer time establish local social networks (and can draw on them in times of need), we found that this support was rarely available to migrant workers—especially the recent circular migrants. Additionally, these social networks are often embedded in hierarchies of caste and class, providing access to some while denying it for others.
Migrant workers also could not access government support, something that proved a crucial fall-back option for vulnerable families when livelihoods were disrupted. This was not because government support was inadequate. Indeed, many families relied nearly exclusively on government support during the difficult time of lockdowns. However, access to these support schemes remained a challenge for migrant workers as they lacked local registrations.
Reverse migration put an additional strain on struggling rural economies too. In one instance, the landowner pulled out of a crop sharing arrangement (batai) once his sons returned home and could work the family’s land themselves, leaving landless labourers without work and without their share of grain payments which they rely on throughout the year. This shortfall came at a time that they needed work and income the most.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Indian government expanded support under the Public Distribution System (PDS)—a key food security scheme providing subsidised cereals and other staples to eligible households.
Cereal allocations were doubled, and additional items such as oil and chickpeas were introduced in some areas to promote dietary diversity. Complementary schemes were also launched to address heightened food insecurity amid livelihood disruptions.
For many households, this proved to be a critical lifeline. Some families we spoke to described how they survived on just the PDS cereals (rice and wheat) with salt during the lockdowns. Some cultivating families had vegetables or lentils for self-consumption and sale but faced difficulties due to disruption in market access/ other restrictions. A multi-generational milk selling family discussed how they had to creatively use up various forms of milk, with limited cold-storage facilities and low local purchasing power and how a portion of it was regularly wasted.
However, without local registrations the migrant workers could not access any government support and often had to fall back on support from civil society groups, access informal loans, or return to rural areas.
Conflicts, disease outbreaks, and global interdependencies that disrupt global supply chains are becoming increasingly common. In this context, it is imperative that governments, communities, and households be better prepared for crisis events such as COVID-19.
In the current situation where migration has become a key livelihood strategy, it is essential for governments to better support mobile populations.
In this context, while social protection schemes like the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC), which allow migrants to access their PDS allocations from anywhere in the country, offer a vital policy intervention, our findings suggest a lack of policy awareness and implementation gaps in the transition process.
Given that many households were multi-sited, with members residing in multiple jurisdictions, enabling decentralised access to rations based on an individual’s place of residence rather than a single registered household location would better reflect the lived realities of mobile and multi-sited households and individuals.
Public policies like the PDS form the backbone of household’s resilience strategies. Such policies are tremendously helpful and important for vulnerable families. Our findings suggest they can be further strengthened by accounting for contextual vulnerabilities to ensure that short-term coping during crisis does not risk exacerbating inequalities in the longer term.
This piece is based on recently published work by the authors and team members and you can read the full paper here.
Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth