Effect of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Income, Education and Health: A Study along the Banks of River Kharkhari, West Bengal, India

This study goes about to analyze the consequences of the coronavirus on human livelihood. Door to door survey has been done to collect local people's responses. To find out the effect of coronavirus on human livelihood discriminant analysis has been done and Pearson’s correlation analysis has been accomplished. For fulfillment of the objective of this study, ۱۳ mouzas (small administrative units in India) and ۱ census town have been selected as study units along the banks of river Kharkhari. The outcome of this study shows that the coronavirus pandemic impacted the reduction in the income level of people in the selected study units. People of villages were less affected by coronavirus than the people of towns. However, the effect of this pandemic is not less in villages and it has a considerable effect on income, education and health of people. There is a negative and significant correlation (r=-۰.۷۱۸, at ۹۹ percent level of confidence) between COVID symptoms/affected and reduction in income level. The result of discriminant analysis reveals that the leading independent variable is a reduction in income level as it has the highest value (۲.۲۳۴) in the standardized canonical function coefficient table. A considerable number of school dropouts has been observed after the lockdown due to this pandemic. Field survey reveals that people are still in fear regarding a reduction in income level due to this pandemic.

Keywords:

Coronavirus , Income Reduction , Discriminant analysis , School dropout