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Paper Details


Title
Mapping Out the Food Insecurity of Urban Floating Labour in Mega City of Dhaka: a Qualitative Study
Author
Md. Salman Sohel, Babul Hossain, Md. Khaled Sifullah,
Email
Abstract

This study intends to assess the food security status among the vulnerable urban floating laborers in Dhaka City. The study used a qualitative study method, where 25 semi-structured interviews were conducted. We used Nvivo-12 software to analyze data and develop the central theme. Our study found that floating laborer’s households have food unavailability due to their socioeconomic situation. They cannot buy food even when there is no food at home. They only purchase food when they have the working opportunity and earnings. Furthermore, due to lack of work and earnings, they, especially elders, often reduce the number of meals a day and food variety. They eat bare for survival, with little concern for quality. They buy half-rotten daily necessary food items, e.g., onion, potato, vegetables, at a cheap rate. They maintain an imbalanced food chart, so, they suffer from malnutrition, which brings substantial adverse physical health outcomes. Though it is unhygienic, they prefer eating street food at a cheap rate rather than clocking at home, because cooking at home requires buying raw food and fuel, which ends up being expensive. We found floating workers have very little access to government support or aid. Due to the continuous price hike of necessary daily commodities, the access to food in these communities has been shrinking. However, the findings will be an important guiding principle for policymakers, aid organizations, and development practitioners to prepare development policies to ensure food security among vulnerable floating workers in developing countries like Bangladesh.

Keywords
Journal or Conference Name
International Journal of Community Well-Being
Publication Year
2024
Indexing
scopus