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ACADEMIA Letters COVID-19 Impact on the Economic and Nutritional Status of Indian Informal Economy Workers Balaram Vishnu Subramani, Research Intern, Centre for Society and Policy, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, INDIA Anjula Gurtoo, Professor, Centre for Society and Policy, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, INDIA Introduction The COVID-19 induced lockdowns and national economic crisis has disproportionately impacted India’s informal sector which employs nearly 93% of the total Indian workforce [1,2]. Informal sector gets broadly characterized by a diversified set of economic activities, enterprises, jobs, and workers not regulated or protected by the state [3]. The concept originally applied to self-employment in small, unregistered enterprises. It has been expanded to include wage employment in about 43 unprotected sectors [4]. Most countries have tried to fight the spread of the virus establishing policies like social distancing and lockdowns, clearly prioritizing people’s health. The indirect impact and casualty of this focus has been on the human security indices of economic and food security [8,9]. While experts have cautioned on these indirect impacts[6,8], few data analysis look at the magnitude. Governments had started a food distribution programme with the help of private agencies during the lockdown period. Public distribution of food, however, was fraught with difficulty due to lockdown and was often inadequate for the family [10,11]. In this article we look at the magnitude of economic and food security impact of COVID19 on the workers of the informal economy in India. First, an economic analysis was conducted to investigate the COVID-19 impact on the financial status of the respondents. The BPL (Below Poverty Line) measure established by the Indian government to calculate the economic status of the population was used to analyze the shift into poverty. Second, DSS (Dietary Academia Letters, May 2022 ©2022 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Anjula Gurtoo, anjula@iisc.ac.in Citation: Subramani, B.V., Gurtoo, A. (2022). COVID-19 Impact on the Economic and Nutritional Status of Indian Informal Economy Workers. Academia Letters, Article 5337. 1 Serving Score) was employed to numerically determine the food security impacts, measured through effects on nutrition. Occupation-specific analyses was conducted for both the analysis mentioned above. A large part of the informal worker population comes from underdeveloped villages and are daily wagers, working in low or semi-skilled jobs in larger cities and towns. Given their low-income levels, most of them live in temporary settlements and have bare minimum facilities for decent living [6]. The direct impact of loss of livelihood due to COVID 19, indirectly impacted the food security of the entire family [5]. With minimal or no savings, most of the workers were unable to pay rent, buy adequate food, and buy medical supplies for the ill and the elderly [5, 6]. Methods This article explores 2 aspects of the COVID-19 impact, namely, economic and nutritional outcomes. The analysis looks at the income and food data of 2830 informal workers from Bengaluru in order to understand the degree of economic and food insecurity faced by the informal sector. The workers were interviewed from Jan-April 2021, using a structured questionnaire based on the UN human security framework (https://www.un.org/humansecurity/wpcontent/uploads/2017/10/h2.pdf). 15 surveyors were employed on a part time basis for data collection, and essential data regarding their income, livelihood, food, and other environmental factors were recorded. Nutrition data was collected on, pre and post COVID-19 (8 months including the 1st lockdown) consumption, on the daily and weekly consumption of the five main food groups, namely, proteins starchy food, dairy, fat and fruits/vegetables. Income and employment data was collected for the individual and the family, pre and post COVID-19 (8 months including the 1st lockdown). Results and Discussion Increase in the BPL category Table 1 highlights the economic impact of COVID-19 on the financial status of the respondents, listed occupation-wise. BPL refers to Below Poverty Line. Individuals are categorized as BPL by the Government of India if their income falls below 15,000 INR per month (about 190 USD). New BPL refers to the individuals who have fallen into the BPL category after the pandemic but were not categorized as BPL before. They represent the shift into poverty. The analysis demonstrates all occupations, barring street vendors, have experienced an income loss and a shift into poverty. While in general the results are expected, our analysis highlights the magnitude of change as well. At first glance, the results contradict the common assumption that given the exponential increase in platform based delivery during the pandemic, people employed within this job would not be impacted. However, a large number of people laid off due to the pandemic joined Academia Letters, May 2022 ©2022 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Anjula Gurtoo, anjula@iisc.ac.in Citation: Subramani, B.V., Gurtoo, A. (2022). COVID-19 Impact on the Economic and Nutritional Status of Indian Informal Economy Workers. Academia Letters, Article 5337. 2 the platforms, reducing the overall earnings per person [8]. While the gig economy supported economic resilience of the overall economy [8,9] , coronavirus impact at the individual level was significant for the platform delivery workers as well. Table 1: Economic shift from non-BPL to BPL post COVID-19. Reduction in Daily Dietary Serving Score To further analyze the effect of the pandemic, a numeric metric called as “Daily Dietary Serving Score” was used. In this metric, a nutritional score gets assigned to each individual based on the food eaten that day. Foods with high nutritional value are given greater weights, and the score was proportional to the nutritional diversity of the respondents’ diets. However, since we did not have data regarding the quantities consumed daily for each food group, we developed a proxy in which we assess the score based on how much food the respondents consumed on a weekly basis, giving us a Weekly Dietary Serving Score. In Figure (1) we can see a leftward shift of DSS, indicating the decline in the dietary scores of the respondents in general. This gets confirmed by the result of the average weekly DSS being reduced by 10%. Occupation wise analysis (Table 2) of the DSS of the respondents based on their occupation was done to identify the most vulnerable groups. The results show all categories were subject to a loss in their nutritional quality. As we can see in Table (2), platform-based delivery workers were affected the most in terms of reduction in their weekly DSS. Academia Letters, May 2022 ©2022 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Anjula Gurtoo, anjula@iisc.ac.in Citation: Subramani, B.V., Gurtoo, A. (2022). COVID-19 Impact on the Economic and Nutritional Status of Indian Informal Economy Workers. Academia Letters, Article 5337. 3 Reduction in Dietary Servings – overall and jobwise. Table 2: Average reduction in DSS as per job category. Conclusion The coronavirus pandemic has sparked not only a health crisis but an economic crisis s well, posing a serious threat to food security. Our results demonstrate the negative impact of COVID-19 on economic and food security on the workers of India’s informal sector. Immediate effects were observed across the spectrum, such as a shift into poverty due to the categorical loss of income and employment. With regard to food security, the survey results Academia Letters, May 2022 ©2022 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Anjula Gurtoo, anjula@iisc.ac.in Citation: Subramani, B.V., Gurtoo, A. (2022). COVID-19 Impact on the Economic and Nutritional Status of Indian Informal Economy Workers. Academia Letters, Article 5337. 4 indicate large majority of respondents did not starve for food. However, the DSS analysis indicates nutritional intake having decreased both in terms of quality and quantity. This reduction could pose severe long-term risks such as stunting, wasting, and reduced cognitive and physical capabilities, furthering their dive into poverty. The results have many policy implications for food and economic security of the economically underprivileged people. For example, Midday Meal Schemes have to be strengthened for the children. Additionally, the breakfast program for children should be introduced [10,12]. Adult population need supplementary nutrition, like iron and other micro nutrients, which should be provided free to the adult population through various public distribution systems. Further analysis for this study includes gender and age related analysis. Academia Letters, May 2022 ©2022 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Anjula Gurtoo, anjula@iisc.ac.in Citation: Subramani, B.V., Gurtoo, A. (2022). COVID-19 Impact on the Economic and Nutritional Status of Indian Informal Economy Workers. Academia Letters, Article 5337. 5 References [1] Zambrano-Monserrate, Manuel A et al. “Indirect effects of COVID-19 on the environment.” The Science of the Total Environment, Vol. 728 (2020): 138813. doi:10.1016/j.scit otenv.2020.138813. [2] The Economic Survey 2018-19, Government of India, 2019. [3] WEIGO, The Informal Economy, International Labour Organization, 2019. [4] Chen, M.A. “The Informal Economy: Definitions, Theories and Policies.” WIEGO, International Labour organization, Aug. 2012, https://www.wiego.org/publications/informaleconomy-definitions-theories-and-policies. [5] Gurtoo, A “Resolving The CoVID-19 Induced Migrant Crisis”, CSP:02C/05/2020. May 28th, 2020. [6] Drèze, J, and Somanchi, A. “The COVID-19 Crisis and Food Security.” Ideas For India, 21 June 2021. [7] International Labour Organization. Food Security: Impact of Covid-19 on People’s Livelihoods, Their Health and Our Food Systems. ILO, 13 Oct. 2020. [8] OECD, “The role of online platforms in weathering the COVID-19 shock’, Policy Responses to Coronavirus (COVID-19). January 2021.https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policyresponses/the-role-of-online-platforms-in-weathering-the-covid-19-shock-2a3b8434/. [9] Bairagya, I, “Effects of Covid-19 Pandemic on the Rural Non-farm Self-employed in India: Does Skill Make a Difference?”, ISEC Working paper 515, 2021. http://www.isec.ac.in/WP%20515%20-%20Indrajit%20Bairagya%20-%20Final.pdf [10] Gurtoo, A., Sharma, N., and Swami. D. (2020). Why Reviving Midday Meals Is A Must. Outlook Poshan, September 17th, 2020. [Full text] [11] Guo, J et al. “Coping with COVID-19: Exposure to COVID-19 and Negative Impact on Livelihood Predict Elevated Mental Health Problems in Chinese Adults” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(11), 3857, 2020. [12] Gundersen, G., “Food Insecurity during COVID-19”, Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Vol 43, 153–161, 2021. doi:10.1002/aepp.13100 Academia Letters, May 2022 ©2022 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Anjula Gurtoo, anjula@iisc.ac.in Citation: Subramani, B.V., Gurtoo, A. (2022). COVID-19 Impact on the Economic and Nutritional Status of Indian Informal Economy Workers. Academia Letters, Article 5337. 6