Irudaya Rajan S, Batra Pooja, Sai Shiva Jayanth R, Sivadasan T M
The International Institute of Migration and Development Kerala India.
Christ (deemed to be) University Pune Lavasa India.
Dev Policy Rev. 2022 Apr 14:e12636. doi: 10.1111/dpr.12636.
COVID-19 has disrupted the lives of millions of people worldwide. Migrants in developing economies have been among the most affected. This vulnerable population faces a threat to their livelihood and way of life. Hence, there is an urgent need to understand the impact of pandemic on their lives to be able to tackle subsequent waves of the pandemic or similar exogenous shocks in future.
We delve into the economic and social disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on employment, sources of income, and lives of different categories of migrant labourers in the Indian state of Kerala.
Using the livelihood portfolio theory, we dissect this impact in relation to a wide range of issues. This was corroborated by the in-depth semi-structured interviews with three categories of respondents. The interview data was analysed by using the directed qualitative content analysis method. We created themes from the data and juxtaposed them with the livelihood portfolio theory in addressing the research objectives.
Results highlight the impact on livelihood, lifestyles, migration prospects and gender aspects. First, the households dependent on international migrants were more severely affected than those with family members who were internal migrants. Second, a considerable lifestyle change (more reliance on a plant-based diet) and borrowing patterns (more reliance on informal money lending) was reported. Third, opinions on future migration prospects were pessimistic, and a trend in favour of reverse migration was noted. We also captured the resilience measures for each of the themes.
We find that blanket responses to mitigate migrants' hardships could be counterproductive. Policy-makers ought to implement tailor-made policies keeping in mind the migrants' classification and socio-economic demographics. Further, we recommend specific measures to address challenges that women face, to ease their workload and mitigate the loss of income. Specific measures aimed at initiating attitudinal change such as creating mental health awareness, curbing misinformation and providing counselling services could also add immense value in tackling the pandemic.
新冠疫情扰乱了全球数百万人的生活。发展中经济体的移民受到的影响最为严重。这一弱势群体的生计和生活方式面临威胁。因此，迫切需要了解疫情对他们生活的影响，以便应对未来的疫情后续浪潮或类似的外部冲击。
我们深入研究新冠疫情对印度喀拉拉邦不同类别的农民工就业、收入来源和生活造成的经济和社会混乱。
运用生计组合理论，我们剖析了与一系列问题相关的这种影响。这得到了对三类受访者进行的深入半结构化访谈的证实。通过使用定向定性内容分析法对访谈数据进行了分析。我们从数据中创建主题，并将其与生计组合理论并列以实现研究目标。
结果突出了对生计、生活方式、移民前景和性别方面的影响。第一，依赖国际移民的家庭比有家庭成员为国内移民的家庭受到的影响更严重。第二，报告了相当大的生活方式变化（更多依赖植物性饮食）和借贷模式（更多依赖非正式民间借贷）。第三，对未来移民前景的看法较为悲观，并注意到逆向移民的趋势。我们还捕捉了每个主题的恢复力措施。
我们发现，一概而论地缓解移民困境的应对措施可能适得其反。政策制定者应根据移民的分类和社会经济人口统计情况实施量身定制的政策。此外，我们建议采取具体措施应对女性面临的挑战，减轻她们的工作量并减少收入损失。旨在引发态度转变的具体措施，如提高心理健康意识、遏制错误信息和提供咨询服务，在应对疫情方面也能增添巨大价值。
