Dynamic livelihood impacts of COVID-19 on different rural households in mountainous areas of China
Open Access
- 23 September 2022
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Public Library of Science (PLoS) in PLOS ONE
- Vol. 17 (9), e0273816
- https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0273816
Abstract
The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic has brought about severe negative livelihood consequences for rural households worldwide. However, the heterogeneity and dynamics of livelihood impacts have been under-researched. There is also lacking a livelihood assessment of the pandemic based on a whole pandemic cycle. This study aimed to investigate the dynamic and heterogeneous livelihood impacts of COVID-19 pandemic for rural households in 2020 based on a case study of Southeast China. The pandemic in China had experienced a complete cycle from initial outbreak, to intermediate recovery and finally new normal stage in 2020. We conducted face-to-face interviews with 95 rural households randomly drawn from 2 rural villages in Xunwu County, Jiangxi Province, Southeast China. The sampled households are interviewed with a questionnaire through face-to-face surveys in February and March, 2021 to evaluate the overall livelihood impacts of the pandemic during 2020. The survey collected data on demographic and economic characteristics, governmental control measures, and effects of the COVID-19 on agricultural production, employment, income, education, and daily life. In-depth interviews are also conducted to clarify the livelihood impacts of COVID-19 on villages. Results showed that the pandemic tremendously caused substantially negative livelihood impacts, including decreasing household income, and disorders in daily lives. The average income loss of all survey households is 6,842 RMB, accounting for 13.01% of the total household income in 2020. Containment measures also resulted in a series of disturbances in daily lives, such as rising food price additional expenditures, travel restrictions, party restrictions, closure of schools and deceasing living standards. There is remarkable household heterogeneity in the livelihood impacts. Results also revealed that the livelihood strategies of rural households to cope with the threat of COVID-19 were different in various pandemic stages. Our findings have illustrated the severity and heterogeneity of livelihood impacts on rural households induced by COVID-19 pandemic. The dynamics of livelihood impacts is also highlighted in the study. Several policy suggestion was proposed to mitigate these negative consequences of the pandemic.Funding Information
- Humanity and Social Science Youth foundation of Chinese Ministry of Education (20YJCZH112)
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (4217011056)
This publication has 36 references indexed in Scilit:
- An investigation of transmission control measures during the first 50 days of the COVID-19 epidemic in ChinaScience, 2020
- COVID-19 and the future of microfinance: evidence and insights from PakistanOxford Review of Economic Policy, 2020
- The effect of human mobility and control measures on the COVID-19 epidemic in ChinaScience, 2020
- COVID-19 exacerbating inequalities in the USThe Lancet, 2020
- The effect of human mobility and control measures on the COVID-19 epidemic in ChinaPublished by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory ,2020
- COVID-19: the gendered impacts of the outbreakThe Lancet, 2020
- Online, face-to-face and telephone surveys—Comparing different sampling methods in wine consumer researchWine Economics and Policy, 2013
- Comparing Data from Online and Face-to-face SurveysInternational Journal of Market Research, 2005
- Telephone versus Face-to-Face Interviewing of National Probability Samples with Long QuestionnairesPublic Opinion Quarterly, 2003
- The Effect of Advance Letters on Cooperation in a List Sample Telephone SurveyPublic Opinion Quarterly, 2002