Internal migration, informal work, and the COVID-19 pandemic: city-level insights on intersecting vulnerabilities

Internal migration is the most prevalent mode of human mobility but is often neglected in research and policy circles. Internal migrants are overrepresented in the informal economy and the COVID-19 pandemic exposed intersecting vulnerabilities associated with their occupations and mobility. However, there are limited studies on the differentiated impacts between migrant and non-migrant workers. A longitudinal, mixed-methods study in 12 cities across South Asia, Latin America, North America, Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, highlights how migrant and local workers in the informal economy - working as domestic workers, home-based workers, street vendors, and waste pickers - fared amid the crisis. It shows that migrant workers were more likely to earn less than the minimum wage and live in informal settlements than local workers before the pandemic. Once the crisis unfolded, migrant workers were often less likely to work during three reference periods (April 2020, mid-2020, and mid-2021), experienced steeper declines in earnings, and were less likely to rely on social networks of support to cope with the crisis. This chapter explores the intersecting factors driving such impacts, including gender.