Determination and Resilience amid COVID-19 Uncertainty

The COVID-19 pandemic has made generating income and access to food far more difficult for many, particularly women in developing countries. To better understand how the pandemic and lockdowns to control its spread are affecting the livelihoods of female small-business owners and farmers in South Asia, IFPRI researchers, who otherwise would have worked on climate change adaptation strategies directly supporting women farmers, conducted surveys in collaboration with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), an organization that aims to empower women workers to reach full-employment and self-reliance by providing the tools, support, and community for them to reach their economic potential. The researchers conducted a phone survey with 627 SEWA members and did in-depth case studies of five SEWA members across the Indian state of Gujarat. While each woman reported different experiences and perspectives on navigating COVID-19, a common theme emerged: making a living became tougher, yet these women were able to identify coping mechanisms to protect their livelihoods and their families. Click below to learn more about these five brave women’s stories – as they explain how COVID-19 is impacting their diverse sources of income and what SEWA is doing to help.

It seems that we are caught up from all sides by this disease. Wherever we go, the pain and suffering follow us.

Case Studies from India

Key theme 1?

Key theme 3?

Key theme 2?

Key theme 4?

Budhiben Motibhai Parmar

Age: 48 Occupation: Hand-pump repairer

Age: 50 Occupation: Rural homestay manager/entrepreneur

Age: 32 Occupation: Farmer

Ayeshaben Habibbhai

Age: 34 Occupation: Snack shop owner

Shantaben Parmar

Age: 51 Occupation: Street vendor

Ensuring Access to Water

Gauriben Ramabhai

Rekhaben Manubhai Rathod

Minimal Demand for Her Crops

No Bookings at Her Homestay

Losing Her Vending Space

Closing Down Her Snack Shop

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Key Theme 1

Suffered income loss

No income loss

Don't know

Income loss due to COVID-19 lockdown

Income loss due to COVID19

87.6%

12.0%

0.5%

How Self-Employed Women in India Coped with Lockdowns and Disruptions to Business

– Shantaben Parmar, 51

The vast majority of women interviewed indicated that they have lost income as a result of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Survey conducted between May-June, 2020

Budhiben Motibhai Parmar hails from Takhatpura village in the Aravalli district of Gujarat and is the matriarch of a family of four, including her son, daughter-in-law and grandson. Together they live in a small one-room house. Budhiben’s husband passed away eight years ago, after which Budhiben raised her children and made her family’s income on her own, working long hours. With no agricultural land handed down to her, Budhiben worked as an agriculture laborer before joining SEWA. “I became a member of SEWA 20 years ago to improve my income and earning capacity,” said Budhiben. SEWA leaders taught her the skills needed to repair hand-pumps used for drawing potable water. After acquiring these skills, Budhiben formed a five-member hand-pump team, which helped her obtain additional work opportunities and income. “We even got contracts from the district government for repairing hand-pumps in our district,” beamed Budhiben. These new skills and government contracts became particularly critical when the COVID-19 lockdown started to put a strain on her family’s income. More than a quarter of women participating in the phone surveys worried about not having enough water during the pandemic. “When this lockdown was announced, we made an appeal to the local authorities that water is an essential service, and hence hand-pump repairing activities should be allowed,” said Budhiben. The local authorities agreed, and Budhiben was able to continue her work. Thus, every day, Budhiben and her team go out at 9 a.m. to repair and service hand-pumps in her area. In one month, they repaired over 150 hand-pumps across 50 villages. “Due to this hand-pumps repairing work, I am busy for the whole day and I hardly get any time to think about the pandemic or its impact,” said Budhiben. Budhiben credited work to be the sole deliverance from the stress and uncertainty brought by the lockdown. She also exemplified the spirit of resilience by turning this crisis into an opportunity for more work. “I see everyone tensed and worried ... but in our home, it is the work that has helped us to carry on in this crisis. Through my work, I am not only able to earn a livelihood for myself, but also facilitate access to clean water to several women in our district ... thus reducing some of their challenges.” “I am really thankful to SEWA for standing by me and supporting me in these difficult times.”

Phone surveys found that more than a quarter of women interviewed worried about not having enough water during the pandemic

Worried about not having enough water

Water insecurity experienced

26.6%

22.3%

12.3%

11.6%

Washed hands less than required

N=627. Recall period- 4 weeks before the survey

Skipped activities due to inadequate water

Drank less than required

Gauriben Ramabhai is a 50-year-old enterprising woman from Bankutra village in the Patan district of Gujarat. Bankutra is a small village of 700 households, bordering the Little Rann of Kutch. According to Gauriben, women in her community were very poor until SEWA started working with them to expand their economic potential. “SEWA identified and promoted our embroidery skills, helped us make it marketable – thereby creating an alternative livelihood source for us which led to national and international recognition,” reminisced Gauriben. She and her family rely on income from rainfed agriculture, which is highly erratic due to fluctuating prices in markets and climate shocks such as droughts. “Sustaining a big family like ours was becoming a huge challenge because of these erratic earnings. It was SEWA who came to our rescue,” said Gauriben. For the past three years, SEWA also trained her family to run “Rural Homestays" in her home, using an online platform. The homestay program supplemented Gauriben’s income from agriculture and embroidery work, helping her host national and even international guests, who would come to her village to experience the rural lifestyle, traditions, and foods. With these income sources, Gauriben and her family were getting by before the COVID-19 pandemic struck India. Since the beginning of the pandemic and onset of travel restrictions, however, she has not had any bookings for her rural homestay. The nationwide lockdown also had an adverse impact on her family’s ability to sell her farm produce and embroidery, because of restrictions on markets introduced to slow the spread of the virus. Gauriben is not alone in her struggles – in fact, more than half of the survey respondents had to use their savings and borrow additional funds to meet basic necessities. “Despite having three different sources of income, we do not have any income [now] and must beg to the local grocer to give us groceries on credit,” said Gauriben.

Less than one third of the street vendors in the sample were able to sell food due to the pandemic

Percentage of respondents who went outside, by activity

2.2%

2.4%

13.2%

14.5%

15.6%

23.9%

54.4%

Buy food

For employment

Sell food

To collect water

Medical care

To meet friends

Attend Meetings

N=627. Recall period- 4 weeks before the survey

Rekhaben Manubhai Rathod is a farmer from rural Gujarat. The 32-year-old hails from the Boriyavi village in Anand district, where her entire family earns a living from agriculture and animal husbandry on their half-acre farm. As an enterprising woman, Rekhaben decided three years ago to expand her farm’s output by purchasing a solar-powered pump for irrigation. She had to take out a loan to make the purchase, but the pump allows her family to harvest profitable crops like garlic and turmeric. According to Rekhaben, the police enforced the initial phase of lockdowns very strictly in her local village. Men were prohibited from venturing out of their homes – let alone going to fields or the market – and only women were allowed to go outside for a short duration of one to two hours. The larger survey indicated many women struggled with similar mobility restrictions – with nearly 95% of interviewed women indicating their mobility decreased under lockdowns. With everything under lockdown, it was virtually impossible for Rekhaben to accomplish her tasks in the allotted two hours outside the home. Her daily roster of activities included travelling to the fields to harvest her crops, buying cereals and vegetables for household use, fetching fodder for the cattle, and then traveling to either Ahmedabad (90 km away) or Baroda (40 km away) to sell her harvest. “How am I supposed to accomplish all these tasks and return back home in two hours only, especially when all modes of transportation are closed?” worried Rekhaben. Even when she did manage to get her produce to the markets of Ahmedabad or Baroda, Rekhaben said that the traders favored the large farmers and offered only throw-away prices for small farmers like herself. “All is lost now, as we stare into an uncertain future with mounting losses. The main question before me is how will I pay the EMIs (equated monthly installments) for the solar pump?” asked Rekhaben. Acknowledging the government’s temporary debt relief measures, Rekhaben said, “SEWA sisters informed me that the government has declared a three-month loan moratorium so I can defer my EMIs for three months but I will still accrue interest.” Asserting the importance of providing small-scale farmers like her with a favorable environment to sell their produce, Rekhaben emphasized: “We do not want charity, we just need support so that we can stand up on our feet again. We need innovative financing solutions to face this economic crisis.”

The survey found many women struggled with mobility restrictions – with nearly 95% of interviewed women reporting having less mobility under lockdown

Mobility now compared to normal times

94.4%

2.9%

1.9%

N=627.

The same as before

Less than before

More than before

Recall period- 4 weeks before the survey

Shantaben Parmar is a 51-year-old street vendor who sells onions and potatoes in the Jamalpur locality of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, to support her 11-member family. She has been a member of SEWA for the past 35 years and has organized street vendors’ collectives, but the present lockdown in Ahmedabad has severely affected her income and livelihood. “Every aspect of managing my vending business has become more and more difficult for me,” said Shantaben. Before the lockdown, Shantaben went to the Vasna Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) market every morning to purchase her stock of potatoes and onions to sell for the day. Normally, there would be a group of women vendors who would accompany Shantaben on her morning journey to the APMC market. They would hire a rickshaw together and split the cost. However, when the lockdown started, group pooling a rickshaw was no longer possible. Shantaben had to travel alone to the APMC market and paid for an expensive solo ride. She had problems with accessing markets and customers as well. According to Shantaben, the police did not allow them to sit at their allocated space for vending. She even alleged that the police broke the platforms made especially for the vendors under the Jamalpur over-bridge. The police only allowed vendors to vend on their lorries, and they did not allow static lorries – the vendors had to keep moving. “Now, how am I supposed to push a lorry and move so much at this age?” questioned Shantaben. As an alternative, the police and APMC allowed the vendors to sit near the riverfront but did not allocate specified vending places. Seating is available only on a first-come, first-serve basis, meaning one member of Shantaben’s family had to wake up every day, as early as 3 a.m., to secure a place for her to vend. Even then, her sales were very low. This crisis ate up much of the Shantaben’s savings, leaving her with the difficult choice of either spending her meager savings on household expenses, or buying the stock of vegetables for her struggling vending business. “We are not even able to break even these days,” said Shantaben. Survey results indicate street vendors were some of those worst hit financially due to the pandemic, with 98% of vendors interviewed reporting facing food insecurity under lockdown. “Corona a toh amne kora kari didha” (this Covid crisis has completely dried-up all our resources) is all she can say.

The survey found street vendors were some of the worst hit financially due to the pandemic, with 98% of vendors interviewed facing food insecurity under lockdown

Street vendor

Casual laborer

Home-based worker

Wage/salary job

Does not work

Agriculture

Animal husbandry

Service provider

Faced food insecurity due to lockdown

98.3%

86.8%

76.5%

72.4%

70.8%

67.5%

57.9%

50.0%

Ayeshaben has three children and her husband works as a driver, although his income is very irregular. In addition to working as SEWA’s savings and credit coordinator, Ayeshaben also ran a small snack shop in the village. “My business was thriving, and I was able to manage the expenses of our household through my income,” remarked Ayeshaben. However, the COVID-19 lockdown had a devastating impact on Ayeshaben’s family finances. “All was going well, but suddenly this coronavirus came and ruined everything.” Due to COVID-19, Ayeshaben had to shut down her snack shop. Ayeshaben used to earn about Rs 200 ($2.70) daily from her shop – which she used to buy household groceries. As a result of the lockdown, her husband also could not work. His income had previously helped them pay the rent and children’s school fees. Survey results show two-thirds of SEWA women reporting that their husbands worked less than normal during the pandemic. “So now we don’t have anything to buy the ration or pay the rent. Due to lockdown, work has come to a halt … but household expenses don’t come to a halt. So, how do we manage that?” remarked Ayeshaben. The lockdown also had an adverse impact on the psyche of Ayeshaben and her family members. All of them worried about how they will pay their expenses, and it broke Ayeshaben’s heart when her children asked for food that she could not provide. Many women interviewed expressed similar concerns with food affordability: 53% percent of phone survey participants noted that they were unable to afford healthy food and 40% responded that they ate less food than required because of a lack of money. To add to her woes, Ayeshaben’s eldest daughter had an accident just before the lockdown, and her wounds had to be bandaged properly. The doctor had advised her to change the bandage after 15 days so that the wound would heal quickly. “But ever since the lockdown, we don’t have enough to eat, so how can we afford to travel to the hospital and get a new bandage?” asked Ayeshaben. Ayeshaben praised the courage and resilience of her daughter, who refused to go to the doctor because it would lead to additional expenditure. Instead, she applied homemade antiseptic remedies to her wound to save money. But these feelings of pride in her children’s resilience were quickly replaced by well-founded fears for their safety and well-being in this pandemic and lockdown. “I am continuously praying to god to keep everyone safe from this coronavirus and bring things back to normal soon,” said Ayeshaben.

More than 40% of women interviewed reported not being able to afford buying fruits and vegetables for their families

Ability to obtain fruits/ vegetables for family

58.2%

41.8%

N=627.

Could not obtain them

Could obtain vegetables/fruits

This work received financial support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) commissioned and administered through the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Fund for International Agricultural Research (FIA), grant number: 81235251, with additional support from the CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets, and the CGIAR GENDER Platform

Budhiben Motibhai Parmar

Photo or illustration here

Ensuring Access to Water

Phone surveys found that more than a quarter of women interviewed worried about not having enough water during the pandemic

Back to Home Page

No Bookings at Her Homestay

Minimal Demand for Her Crops

Losing Her Vending Space

Closing Down Her Snack Shop

Age: 48 Occupation: Hand-Pump Repairer

Worried about not having enough water

Washed hands less than required

Skipped activities due to inadequate water

Drank less than required

Water insecurity experienced

N=627. Recall period- 4 weeks before the survey

26.6%

22.3%

12.3%

11.6%

Shantaben Parmar

Photo or illustration here

Losing Her Vending Space

The survey found street vendors were some of the worst hit financially due to the pandemic, with 98% of vendors interviewed facing food insecurity under lockdown

Back to Home Page

No Bookings at Her Homestay

Minimal Demand for Her Crops

Ensuring Access to Water

Closing Down Her Snack Shop

Age: 51 Occupation: Street Vendor

Street vendor

Faced food insecurity due to lockdown

98.3%

places. Seating is available only on a first-come, first-serve basis, meaning one member of Shantaben’s family had to wake up every day, as early as 3 a.m., to secure a place for her to vend. Even then, her sales were very low. This crisis ate up much of the Shantaben’s savings, leaving her with the difficult choice of either spending her meager savings on household expenses, or buying the stock of vegetables for her struggling vending business. “We are not even able to break even these days,” said Shantaben. Survey results indicate street vendors were some of those worst hit financially due to the pandemic, with 98% of vendors interviewed reporting facing food insecurity under lockdown. “Corona a toh amne kora kari didha” (this Covid crisis has completely dried-up all our resources) is all she can say.

Casual laborer

Home-based worker

Wage/salary job

Does not work

Agriculture

Animal husbandry

Service provider

86.8%

76.5%

72.4%

70.8%

67.5%

57.9%

50.0%

Recall period- 4 weeks before the survey

Gauriben Ramabhai

Photo or illustration here

No Bookings at Her Homestay

Less than one third of the street vendors in the sample were able to sell food due to the pandemic

Back to Home Page

Ensuring Access to Water

Minimal Demand for Her Crops

Losing Her Vending Space

Closing Down Her Snack Shop

Age: 50 Occupation: Rural Homestay Manager/Entrepreneur

Buy food

Percentage of respondents who went outside, by activity

2.2%

India. Since the beginning of the pandemic and onset of travel restrictions, however, she has not had any bookings for her rural homestay. The nationwide lockdown also had an adverse impact on her family’s ability to sell her farm produce and embroidery, because of restrictions on markets introduced to slow the spread of the virus. Gauriben is not alone in her struggles – in fact, more than half of the survey respondents had to use their savings and borrow additional funds to meet basic necessities. “Despite having three different sources of income, we do not have any income [now] and must beg to the local grocer to give us groceries on credit,” said Gauriben.

For employment

Sell food

To collect water

Medical care

To meet friends

Attend Meetings

2.4%

13.2%

14.5%

15.6%

23.9%

54.4%

N=627. Recall period- 4 weeks before the survey

Rekhaben Manubhai Rathod

Photo or illustration here

Minimal Demand for Her Crops

The survey found many women struggled with mobility restrictions – with nearly 95% of interviewed women reporting having less mobility under lockdown

Back to Home Page

No Bookings at Her Homestay

Ensuring Access to Water

Losing Her Vending Space

Closing Down Her Snack Shop

Age: 32 Occupation: Farmer

The same as before

Mobility now compared to normal times

N=627.

94.4%

Less than before

More than before

2.9%

1.9%

Ayeshaben Habibbhai

Photo or illustration here

Closing Down Her Snack Shop

More than 40% of women interviewed reported not being able to afford buying fruits and vegetables for their families

Back to Home Page

No Bookings at Her Homestay

Ensuring Access to Water

Losing Her Vending Space

Minimal Demand for Her Crops

Age: 34 Occupation: Snack Shop Owner

Could not obtain them

Ability to obtain fruits/ vegetables for family

N=627.

58.2%

Could obtain vegetables/fruits

worried about how they will pay their expenses, and it broke Ayeshaben’s heart when her children asked for food that she could not provide. Many women interviewed expressed similar concerns with food affordability: 53% percent of phone survey participants noted that they were unable to afford healthy food and 40% responded that they ate less food than required because of a lack of money. To add to her woes, Ayeshaben’s eldest daughter had an accident just before the lockdown, and her wounds had to be bandaged properly. The doctor had advised her to change the bandage after 15 days so that the wound would heal quickly. “But ever since the lockdown, we don’t have enough to eat, so how can we afford to travel to the hospital and get a new bandage?” asked Ayeshaben. Ayeshaben praised the courage and resilience of her daughter, who refused to go to the doctor because it would lead to additional expenditure. Instead, she applied homemade antiseptic remedies to her wound to save money. But these feelings of pride in her children’s resilience were quickly replaced by well-founded fears for their safety and well-being in this pandemic and lockdown. “I am continuously praying to god to keep everyone safe from this coronavirus and bring things back to normal soon,” said Ayeshaben.

41.8%