Livelihood strategies in response to drought and its socio-economic determinants in Andhra Pradesh, India

Chandrashekhar Singh, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Bornali Dutta, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

The study explores livelihood strategies of the drought victims across several socio-economic and demographic characteristics in Andhra Pradesh. It uses the second round of Young Lives data collected in the year 2005-06. To find out the livelihood strategies of drought victim, out of the large number of responses, four categories have been made namely used credit, insurance and savings; work more; help received from different sources. The analysis revealed that nature of livelihood strategy is dynamic and varies across regions and different socio-economic characteristics. During the recent drought, use of credit, insurance and savings (32%) are by far the most important strategy to mitigate effect of drought followed by working more. People from lower socio-economic strata and causal labourers are working more to mitigate the effect of drought. The drought victims do not receive much help either from Government/NGOs or other sources.