What money couldn’t buy: social protection for migrants in India’s lockdown

Abstract

We analyze findings from a large-scale survey of over 11,000 respondents across 64 districts in India, conducted between December 2020 and January 2021 to examine the impact of the lockdown on internal migrants in India. We find that compared to the households without migrants, households with migrants were relatively advantaged in income levels before the pandemic but faced more severe food and financial vulnerability even nine months after the first lockdown. In addition, governmental social security support was more difficult to access for households with migrants. The paper joins several scholars in arguing for greater policy attention and social protection for migrants.