When the Covid-19 pandemic brought economic activity to a near standstill, millions of vulnerable Indian households found themselves confronting a painful question: how does a family survive when both income and food suddenly become uncertain?
A new study by researchers from Lancaster University and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, published in PLOS One, chronicles the quiet struggles of families pushed to the brink during the Covid-19 crisis.
Behind the statistics are stories of mothers skipping meals so their children could eat, workers selling the few assets they owned, families postponing medical care, and migrants undertaking uncertain journeys back home in search of familiar social networks and rural food stocks when city livelihoods disappeared.
The study shows that while the pandemic may have receded, the scars it left behind — depleted savings, accumulated debt, interrupted education, and persistent insecurity — continue to shape the lives of many vulnerable households even today.
Titled ‘Diverse coping strategies for food insecurity: A qualitative study of economically precarious households in India in the context of COVID-19’, the study found that families rarely relied on a single strategy. Instead, they moved from one coping mechanism to another as the crisis deepened, exhausting every available option before turning to more drastic measures.
The researchers interviewed 86 households in Uttar Pradesh and Goa between December 2022 and March 2023, focusing on families that had experienced severe and prolonged pandemic-related hardships. Men, women, and children above seven years of age shared their experiences, revealing how the burden of survival was distributed within households.
The first response for most families was what researchers describe as "consumption smoothing" — stretching scarce resources as far as possible. Meals became simpler. Milk, eggs, meat, and vegetables disappeared from plates. Potatoes, rice, and wheat became staples of survival.
A daily wage labourer interviewed for the study described how the family gradually reduced food variety before reducing quantity.
"First we stopped buying milk. Then vegetables became occasional. We told the children that things would improve soon," the respondent recalled. For many mothers, the burden was particularly heavy.
Researchers documented a pattern known as "maternal buffering", where women routinely ate less so that children and other family members could have enough. One mother explained that she often pretended not to be hungry.
"I would tell my children I had already eaten. Sometimes I drank water and went to sleep so they could finish what little food we had," she recounted.
The study records numerous such testimonies, illustrating the profound human cost of the pandemic among households already living on the margins.
Families living together pooled resources and cooked jointly to save fuel costs. Some parents temporarily sent children to grandparents or relatives because they could no longer afford to feed everyone under one roof.
As the 21-day nationwide lockdown from March 24, 2020, was subsequently extended in phases until May 31, 2020, triggering widespread job losses and disrupted livelihoods, these early adjustments became insufficient.
The study found that households increasingly turned to borrowing money, delaying healthcare, selling productive assets, and migrating.
A migrant worker from Uttar Pradesh described selling a goat that had been purchased after years of savings. "We had kept it for emergencies. During the lockdown, that emergency arrived," he said.
Another respondent reported postponing treatment for a chronic illness because food expenses took priority. "Medicines could wait. Hunger could not," the family explained.
Lead author Dr. Charumita Vasudev of Manchester University said the findings reveal that household responses to crises are shaped not only by the crisis itself but also by existing inequalities.
"In an increasingly uncertain world, it is important to understand that household responses to global threats are not just about the crisis itself, but the existing structural inequalities and vulnerabilities that people are already coping with," she said.
Among those most severely affected were migrant workers.
The study identifies circular migrants and recent migrants as particularly vulnerable because many lacked access to local welfare benefits and social support networks.
When jobs disappeared almost overnight, many workers decided to return to their villages. For some, the return journey represented hope.
"At least in the village nobody sleeps hungry," one migrant worker told researchers while explaining why his family left the city.
Yet the return was often far from a solution. Families that had previously depended on remittances suddenly had more mouths to feed and fewer income earners. Agricultural incomes were already strained, and rural economies struggled to absorb returning workers.
The study notes that migration status and pre-existing poverty played a major role in determining which households could cope and which slipped deeper into deprivation.
Co-author Dr. Sukumar Vellakkal of IIT Kanpur observed that resilience often depended less on income alone and more on access to social protection systems and local support networks.
For many households, government support became a crucial lifeline. During the pandemic, the Centre expanded assistance under the Public Distribution System (PDS), doubling cereal allocations and providing additional commodities such as pulses and edible oil.
Several families interviewed said these rations helped them survive months without stable employment. "The ration shop kept us alive," one respondent said bluntly, as per the study.
Another recalled that government food support prevented the family from going hungry after construction work stopped.
"Without those rations, we would have had nothing," the respondent said. Yet the study also highlights major gaps, which should serve as a wake-up call for the authorities to be filled to avoid repetition in case yet another pandemic strikes.
Because ration cards were often linked to a household's home district or State, many migrant workers were unable to access food entitlements where they lived and worked.
One household of seasonal brick-kiln workers reported being unable to receive local rations because their documentation remained linked to another State. During the crisis, they survived largely on meals distributed through a partnership between a local hospital and a non-governmental organisation, said Swayamshree Mishra, another co-author of the study and researcher from Manchester University.
The researchers argued that while initiatives such as the One Nation One Ration Card scheme represent important progress, administrative hurdles, documentation requirements, technological barriers, and limited awareness continue to prevent many vulnerable families from accessing support.
The study, which also has Ankita Rathi and Jasmine Fledderjohann from Manchester University as co-authors, points to another hidden driver of hardship: healthcare costs.
Even before Covid-19, many low-income households lived perilously close to the edge. An illness in the family could quickly wipe out savings. During the pandemic, families frequently diverted resources away from healthcare to secure food and daily necessities.
“Future crisis preparedness must recognise that resilience depends not only on income but also on accessible healthcare, portable welfare benefits, and strong community support systems,” said the authors.
