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‘A world turned upside down: COVID-19, urban poverty and older people in Chennai, an Indian metropole’.

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Dr Penny Vera Sanso, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography reflects on the COVID-related suffering that will be detrimental to Chennai’s poor.

The expectation is COVID-19 will run wild through the high density low-income settlements that Chennai’s poor are forced to live in.  This may yet happen. What is happening is a great deal of COVID-related suffering, including excess deaths, deepening impoverishment and changing intergenerational relations that will force some older people into greater dependency and marginalization and others into more depleting economic engagements.

Currently the greatest threat for people living in low-income settlements is COVID-related impacts. How is this possible?

  • First, India is a highly segregated society. Segregated by class, caste and labour conditions, in which 90% of workers have no rights, most are employed on daily or piece rates. There are few points of contact that would provide person-to-person spread between slum dwellers and the ‘flying classes’ who brought the disease to India on flights from Wuhan, UAE, Italy and so on. Further, the longstanding stigmatization of slum dwellers and low caste people as sources of contagion, which underpins widespread Human Rights abuses in India, meant that the people most likely to be carrying the disease, the Middle Classes, shut off all direct contact with those least likely to have it, slum dwellers.
  • Second, India implemented a lockdown on the 25 March, when it only had 519 cases, quarantining tourists, banning international commercial flights and suspending train services.
  • Third, it established Containment Zones for any buildings or areas with one or more confirmed cases. Containment is backed up with targeted testing and tracing. As of 29 April 2020 there were 170 containment zones across India and 1075 deaths.  In this no-one can leave their homes: groceries are delivered through government channels. The lockdown and containment are stringently policed, often heavy-handedly.

For most of the urban poor COVID-19 has brought their economic lives to a standstill. Research undertaken in five Chennai slums between 2007-10, including the 2008 international banking crisis, that translated into a significant economic slow down in Chennai, is instructive.  Chennai’s labour market is segregated by age, gender and education, and has until now provided considerable economic space for older people, who occupied areas of the economy that younger people had vacated for higher status, easier conditions and better pay.

People on low, insecure, daily incomes do not earn enough to save. There is no question that after six weeks without work everyone in Chennai’s low-income settlements, whose nutritional status would not have been good, anaemia and malnutrition being endemic, will have cut food expenditures to the bone.

Beyond this, the wider context impinges on people’s health and capacity to seek healthcare. Water shortages and temperatures ranging from 34 deg C to 40 deg C contribute to dehydration and heat stroke. Free health services are centrally located, hence inaccessible for most people, while private doctors and medication need to be paid for. All this in a context where male slum dwellers already have a life expectancy of 5 years less than non-slum dwellers, reflecting globally established social gradients in morbidity and mortality.

For the urban poor starvation, non-COVID-19 sickness and deepening vulnerability are currently the greatest dangers they face; these will drive them back into finding work, often servicing those classes and sectors who comprise the current pool in which COVID-19 swims.  Hunger will bring the virus to the slums.

In this world turned upside down, the poor are, currently, much more at risk from excess, COVID-related deaths than COVID-19 itself.  Loss of health, assets, jobs, housing and the disruption of social and economic networks beyond their settlements are the immediate impacts of lockdown.  There will be mid and long term impacts.

At best mid-term impacts will be relatively short lived, requiring greater labour force participation for everyone in low-income settlements – but not the ‘pull your socks up’ participation that neo-liberal economists like to think will raise household incomes.  People of all ages and abilities will be forced onto the labour market, lowering pay rates.  Older women and men, a higher percentage of whom are already in paid work than are people aged 15-19, will be forced into even more body depleting hours and conditions on less pay, in a context in which age discrimination in employment and wages is well established.  Family and kin networks will develop holes due to the underlying health conditions, deepening nutritional deficits and untreated morbidity under COVID-19 conditions and directly from COVID-19 if it spreads through the slums.

Tamil Nadu is a state with a comparatively low fertility rate. COVID-19’s direct and indirect consequences will sharpen the long-term risks of reducing the size of family networks in the context of weak state support.

Older people with small, depleted or no family, with no or inadequate pensions or who have lost work will find their capacity to cater for themselves or to rely on others significantly constrained. They could well become even more tied into impoverished family networks that increasingly depend on older people’s inputs.

There is no getting away from the need for a realistic income for all people over age 60 and a pension programme that guarantees such.

Irrespective of whether COVID-19 finds spreads through Chennai’s low-income settlements or not, excess COVID-related deaths are a certainty.  It will be political will that determines whether these deaths and the pandemic’s long-term impacts on people living in low-income settlements will ever be recognized for what they are: the consequence of how India chooses to distribute its risks across society.

Educating young people on tuberculosis

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To mark World TB Day 2020, Professor Sanjib Bhakta, Professor of Molecular Microbiology and Biochemistry, discusses his new collaborative project which aims to educate children on tuberculosis (TB).

JoiHok

 Birkbeck’s Mycobacteria Research Laboratory is currently working on a charity project, called ‘JoiHok’ (translated to ‘Let victory be yours!” in English), that is looking at educational intervention as a means of spreading awareness and effective control of disease. The project concentrates on students in greater Kolkata, India from low socioeconomic backgrounds, whose families are disproportionately affected by tuberculosis (TB) due to factors like malnutrition and poor living conditions.

TB has progressively worsened with the advent of antibiotic resistance, hence there is urgent need to review and deal with the disease not only as a medical concern or even public health problem alone, but also as a social problem. The project is using creative tools like local folk-art and music to encourage children to engage, learn and discuss the issue of antibiotic resistance in the context of TB. It is hoped the children’s knowledge will be transferred to household members which in turn could encourage patients to adhere to prescribed anti-TB medication.

Global infectious diseases are rarely out of the news, as new communicable diseases such as COVID-19, Ebola, Zika, bird flu as well as older, familiar diseases such TB, cholera and malaria, raise concerns about outbreaks and global pandemics. In our ever-changing, rapidly globalising world, the free movement of people and goods, social change, urbanisation and environmental degradation, mean that microorganisms can move quickly between and across populations, crossing natural and human-made borders with ease. On top of this, microorganisms are constantly adapting and developing resistance to existing antibiotic and other treatments, leading to the resurgence of old diseases and the evolution of new ones.

Birkbeck’s research-intensive MRes Global Infectious Diseases course is designed for developing the research aptitude and skills that one needs to develop an academic or professional career as a researcher into global infectious diseases.

BEI Research Year in Review

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2019 was a busy year for the School of Business, Economics and Informatics. Here are some of our research highlights.

BEI Research Year in Review

Improving Diversity on Sport Boards

Improving diversity on sport boards

Dr Richard Tacon and Dr Geoff Walters from the Department of Management worked with Sport England to improve the diversity of board members in the sport and physical activity sector. The programme, unveiled in September, follows a series of studies demonstrating that sports governance lacks diversity, particularly with regards to ethnicity and disability.

Richard and Geoff have designed and implemented training materials as part of the initiative, which will identify and develop a pool of suitable candidates from under-represented groups. The intention is that sports organisations will then be able to turn to these people when recruiting for new board positions.

Diagnosing Gaming Disorder

Gaming

Researchers led by Bruno Schivinski, Lecturer in Marketing, developed the first psychological test to check for ‘gaming disorder’, a new type of mental illness now recognised by the World Health Organisation.

Now accessible online, the test provides participants with feedback on their video game habits in comparison with the rest of the population. Research is ongoing to understand the point at which gaming becomes a health problem and the factors which contribute to the development of gaming disorders to promote responsible gaming.

Sticking up for Parents in the Performing Arts

Paloma Faith is among those calling for better support for parents in the performing arts

Academics from the Department of Organizational Psychology developed a survey of workers and work-life balance in the performing arts in partnership with Parents and Carers in Performing Arts (PiPA).

Over 2500 UK workers from the performing arts, including 1000 parents and carers, took the survey. It found that 43% of performing artists who left their careers did so because they became parents. Carers pay a significant penalty in terms of well-being and remuneration in order to maintain a career in the performing arts and are far more likely to leave the industry than non-carers, leading to a drain in talent and reduced diversity in the arts. Professor Almuth McDowall, Head of Department, added her voice to the call for change alongside leading figures in the sector such as actor Cate Blanchett and singer Paloma Faith.

Understanding Text Data

Researchers from the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems developed a tool to simplify the process of understanding and using data from text. Called Samtla API, the new service can automatically annotate words and phrases from digital text documents with named entities and sentiments using machine learning and text mining technologies.

Spearheaded by Dr Mark Levene, Dr Martyn Harris, and Dr Andrius Mudinus, the initiative grew in response to the growing need for easily understandable annotations on the large volumes of text data, generated by media, businesses and individuals all over the world.

A Prizewinning Contribution

Dr Alexey Pokrovskiy was awarded the European Prize in Combinatorics

In August, Dr Alexey Pokrovskiy from the Department of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics was awarded the European Prize in Combinatorics. The prestigious award is made once every two years, recognising excellent contributions in Combinatorics, Discrete Mathematics and their Applications by young European researchers aged 35 or under.

Adapting to Climate Change

Strategic management experts from the Department of Management and the Cass Business School at City, University of London found that greater collaboration between the insurance industry and state policy makers could improve society’s ability to recover from disasters linked to climate change.

Using insurance is a step away from crisis towards risk management, strengthening socio-economic resilience under a changing climate. Birkbeck’s Dr Konstantinos Chalkias, the Cass Business School’s Professor Paula Jarzabkowski and their co-authors put forward seven recommendations to the Global Commission on Adaptation to maximise the benefits of insurance for climate adaptation.

Supporting Sustainable Return to Work following Mental Ill-health Absence

Dr Jo Yarker from the Department of Organizational Psychology and Professor Karina Nielsen from the University of Sheffield have been researching how to support employees who are returning to work following mental ill-health absence.

In the UK alone, stress, anxiety or depression accounts for 57% of all working days lost to ill-health in 2017-18. Yarker and Nielsen developed a toolkit for employees, colleagues, line managers and HR professionals to support individuals to return to and stay in work.

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Informal entrepreneurs and formalisation: insights from a role identity transition lens

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Dr Manto Gotsi from the Department of Management is exploring the barriers to entrepreneurship in developing economies. She explains her findings from research into the formalisation of waste pickers in Cali, Colombia.Entrepreneurship in Colombia

Entrepreneurial development is viewed as an engine for economic growth in developing economies. However, these same economies are faced with high numbers of informal entrepreneurs: choosing entrepreneurship out of necessity rather than opportunity, these individuals operate on a small scale, are low-skilled and often marginalised.

In many developing economies, informal entrepreneurship, that is, monetary transactions not declared to the state for tax benefit and/or labour law purposes, but which are legal in all other respects, accounts for up to 60% of GDP. Informal entrepreneurs are viewed as unfair competition to formalised entrepreneurs, with the risk of stifling economic growth. These workers also face a lack of protection and are at risk of exploitation, since they are operating outside of the law.

However, despite growing efforts to influence formalisation, informal entrepreneurs are exceptionally persistent. Alongside my colleagues Dr Maria Granados and Dr Ainurul Rosli, I wanted to find out why this is the case.

This missing micro focus

Prior to our research, studies on formalisation have focused predominantly on institutions; aiming to stimulate entrepreneurs to formalise through direct controls on their actions, alongside education and appeals to raise awareness of the benefits for the individual.

Formalisation has typically been conceived of as a destination rather than a journey (Burton, Sørensen and Dobrev, 2016). We took an alternative view, understanding the process as a continuum, whereby an informal entrepreneur undergoes a role identity transition.

For this transition to take place, an individual must adopt new skills, attitudes, behaviour and patterns of interpersonal interactions, while maintaining some sense of self-continuity. They may require external resource and validation from their peers in order to legitimize their position. A successful role identity transition will result in internalization of this new identity; an alternative outcome is role abandonment.

Our research

Our research took us to Cali, Colombia, where informal waste pickers have been carrying out recycling activities for over one hundred years. For the past thirty, they’ve been relying on the Navarro landfill; collecting recyclable materials to transport and sell to intermediary informal warehouses. When Navarro was closed due to environmental concerns, a new law prohibited waste pickers from working in sanitary landfills and from recuperating recyclables from trash bags and transporting them in non-motorized vehicles. Following an intervention from CIVISOL Foundation, the Colombian Constitutional Court recognized the marginalized status of these waste pickers and granted them formal entrepreneur status.

Surprisingly, despite this change in the law, by no means all waste pickers became and stayed formal entrepreneurs. Some became paid workers instead of entrepreneurs, while others chose to continue as renegades outside of the system. There was also evidence of individuals moving back and forth between these options, with many entry and exit points on the road to formal entrepreneurship.

Through our interviews with waste pickers in Cali, we found that those who had successfully transitioned to formal entrepreneurs in what we see as a ‘virtuous cycle’ had in common a high sense of calling that enabled them to adopt the formal entrepreneurial identity. In addition, they were comparatively less concerned about receiving validation from their peers and wider society.

Those who became renegade waste pickers also did not feel a strong need for external recognition, however they didn’t feel the same calling, so didn’t adopt the formal entrepreneur identity. Similarly, although those who became paid workers had access to information and resources, they couldn’t see themselves in the role of formal entrepreneur.

How to encourage virtuous cycles

Our research tells us that granting formal status to marginalized workers is necessary, but not sufficient for sustained formalisation. It is essential to take into consideration the norms, values, beliefs and struggles of informal entrepreneurs, and encourage role identity development through information initiatives and social network support. People who felt a calling and could visualise themselves in the role were more likely to remain in formalised status.

In order to create more external support, there should also be campaigns to motivate local government, local business communities and broader civil society to recognize and support the formalisation journey.

All this needs to take place before, during and after role transition to ensure more people stay in formalised roles.

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