IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nca/ncaerm/v19y2023i2023-1p59-93.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Urban Exclusion: Rethinking Social Protection in the Wake of the Pandemic in India

Author

Listed:
  • Pallavi Choudhuri

    (National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi, India.)

  • Santanu Pramanik

    (IFMR Graduate School of Business at Krea University)

  • Sonalde Desai

    (National Council of Applied Economic Research, New Delhi, India.)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the consequent nationwide lockdown in India that began on 25 March 2020, caused a major disruption in the labour market, leading to the widespread loss of livelihoods and food insecurity. The findings from a telephonic survey of a representative sample of more than 3,000 households in the National Capital Region also reveal a dramatic loss in earning capacity. The place of residence and occupation mediated the impact of the lockdown, with greater vulnerabilities witnessed amongst those engaged in informal employment, especially in urban areas. The government rolled out a series of welfare measures in response to the widespread economic distress, with the provision of free foodgrains and cash transfers aimed at rehabilitating those who were the most affected. While the use of prior social registries enabled quick disbursement, our analysis shows that few households received both foodgrains and cash transfers, particularly in urban areas. Urban residents were also eight percentage points less likely to receive cash transfers than their rural counterparts.

Suggested Citation

  • Pallavi Choudhuri & Santanu Pramanik & Sonalde Desai, "undated". "Urban Exclusion: Rethinking Social Protection in the Wake of the Pandemic in India," Margin-The Journal of Applied Economic Research v:19:y:2023:i:2023-1:p:59, National Council of Applied Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:nca:ncaerm:v:19:y:2023:i:2023-1:p:59-93
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/002529212312059
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ncaer.org/publication/margin-the-journal-of-applied-economic-research-7
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/https://doi.org/10.1177/002529212312059?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Informal Employment; Income; Social Protection; Cash Transfer; COVID-19; India;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nca:ncaerm:v:19:y:2023:i:2023-1:p:59-93. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: B Ramesh (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ncaerin.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.