IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jconsa/v55y2021i1p151-178.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unequal but essential: How subsistence consumer–entrepreneurs negotiate unprecedented shock with extraordinary resilience during COVID‐19

Author

Listed:
  • Madhubalan Viswanathan
  • Hussein Faruque Aly
  • Ronald Duncan
  • Namrata Mandhan

Abstract

We use qualitative interviews to study subsistence consumers confronting the global, pervasive and extended challenges of COVID‐19, encompassing literally all realms of daily life. For subsistence consumers whose circumstances are filled with day‐to‐day uncertainty and a small margin of error to begin with, the pandemic has led to manifold uncertainties and a disappearing margin of error, with potentially lethal consequences. Their constraints to thinking and lack of self‐confidence arising from both low income and low literacy are magnified in the face of the complex, invisible pandemic and the fear and panic it has caused. Characteristic relational strengths are weakened with social distancing and fear of infection. Yet, subsistence consumers display humanity in catastrophe, and confront the uncontrollable by reiterating a higher power. Consumption is reduced to the very bare essentials and income generation involves staying the course versus finding any viable alternative. We derive implications for consumer affairs.

Suggested Citation

  • Madhubalan Viswanathan & Hussein Faruque Aly & Ronald Duncan & Namrata Mandhan, 2021. "Unequal but essential: How subsistence consumer–entrepreneurs negotiate unprecedented shock with extraordinary resilience during COVID‐19," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 151-178, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:55:y:2021:i:1:p:151-178
    DOI: 10.1111/joca.12351
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12351
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/joca.12351?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scott R Baker & Robert A Farrokhnia & Steffen Meyer & Michaela Pagel & Constantine Yannelis & Jeffrey Pontiff, 0. "How Does Household Spending Respond to an Epidemic? Consumption during the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic," The Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 10(4), pages 834-862.
    2. Seema Jayachandran, 2020. "Microentrepreneurship in Developing Countries," NBER Working Papers 26661, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jong-Wha Lee & Warwick J. McKibbin, 2004. "Globalization and Disease: The Case of SARS," Asian Economic Papers, MIT Press, vol. 3(1), pages 113-131.
    4. Per Davidsson & Scott R. Gordon, 2016. "Much Ado about Nothing? The Surprising Persistence of Nascent Entrepreneurs through Macroeconomic Crisis," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 40(4), pages 915-941, July.
    5. Castaño, María-Soledad & Méndez, María-Teresa & Galindo, Miguel-Ángel, 2015. "The effect of social, cultural, and economic factors on entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(7), pages 1496-1500.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shobod Deba Nath & Kazi Md. Jamshed & Javed M. Shaikh, 2022. "The impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on subsistence consumers' well‐being and coping strategies: Insights from India and Bangladesh," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(1), pages 180-210, March.
    2. Kumar, Avinash & Kumra, Rajeev & Singh, Ramendra, 2022. "Base of the pyramid producers’ constraints: An integrated review and research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 115-129.
    3. Coker, Kesha K. & Zeiss, Jessica G. & Albinsson, Pia A., 2024. "The consumer on stage: Toward a typology of improvisation in consumption contexts," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Yothin Jinjarak & Ilan Noy & Quy Ta, 2022. "Pandemics and Economic Growth: Evidence from the 1968 H3N2 Influenza," Economics of Disasters and Climate Change, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 73-93, March.
    2. Sungjo Hong & Seok-Hwan Choi, 2021. "The Urban Characteristics of High Economic Resilient Neighborhoods during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case of Suwon, South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-39, April.
    3. Haoyu Wang & Yishan Zhang & Yingying Qin & Chao Chen & Beason Richard, 2022. "The Economic Impact of the SARS Epidemic with Related Interventions in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(20), pages 1-17, October.
    4. Rahmiye Figen Ceylan & Burhan Ozkan & Esra Mulazimogullari, 2020. "Historical evidence for economic effects of COVID-19," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(6), pages 817-823, August.
    5. Madhubalan Viswanathan & Saravana Jaikumar & Arun Sreekumar & Shantanu Dutta, 2021. "Marketplace literacy education and coping behaviors among subsistence consumer–entrepreneurs during demonetization in India," Journal of Consumer Affairs, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(1), pages 179-202, March.
    6. George, Ammu & Li, Changtai & Lim, Jing Zhi & Xie, Taojun, 2021. "From SARS to COVID-19: The evolving role of China-ASEAN production network," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    7. Karolina Perèiæ & Milica Slijepèeviæ & Pedja Ašanin Gole, 2023. "Factors influencing the purchase of fashion products before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: the example of Serbia," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 41(1), pages 65-89.
    8. Hugo S. Gonçalves & Sérgio Moro, 2023. "On the economic impacts of COVID‐19: A text mining literature analysis," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 375-394, February.
    9. Ranasinghe, Ashantha, 2024. "Gender specific distortions, entrepreneurship and misallocation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    10. Gu, Leilei & Liu, Zhongyang & Xu, Danyang, 2023. "The risk-mitigating role of corporate social responsibility in Chinese listed heavy-polluting companies: An extreme event experience perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    11. Margaret Chitiga‐Mabugu & Martin Henseler & Ramos Mabugu & Hélène Maisonnave, 2021. "Economic and Distributional Impact of COVID‐19: Evidence from Macro‐Micro Modelling of the South African Economy," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 89(1), pages 82-94, March.
    12. Louis-Philippe Beland & Abel Brodeur & Taylor Wright, 2020. "COVID-19, Stay-at-Home Orders and Employment: Evidence from CPS Data," Carleton Economic Papers 20-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 19 May 2020.
    13. Inmaculada Buendía-Martínez & Inmaculada Carrasco Monteagudo, 2020. "The Role of CSR on Social Entrepreneurship: An International Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-22, August.
    14. John Gathergood & Fabian Gunzinger & Benedict Guttman-Kenney & Edika Quispe-Torreblanca & Neil Stewart, 2020. "Levelling Down and the COVID-19 Lockdowns: Uneven Regional Recovery in UK Consumer Spending," Papers 2012.09336, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2020.
    15. Di Bartolomeo, Giovanni & D'Imperio, Paolo & Felici, Francesco, 2022. "The fiscal response to the Italian COVID-19 crisis: A counterfactual analysis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    16. Jemey, Nursyuhada binti & Kasim, Nor Hasniah binti, 2023. "The Impact of Covid-19 on Consumption Patterns Among Malaysian Youths," MPRA Paper 118841, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 26 Sep 2023.
    17. Anubhab Gupta & Heng Zhu & Miki Khanh Doan & Aleksandr Michuda & Binoy Majumder, 2021. "Economic Impacts of the COVID−19 Lockdown in a Remittance‐Dependent Region," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 103(2), pages 466-485, March.
    18. My Nguyen & Kien Le, 2023. "The impacts of women's land ownership: Evidence from Vietnam," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 158-177, February.
    19. Md. Mahmudul Alam & Haitian Wei & Abu N. M. Wahid, 2021. "COVID‐19 outbreak and sectoral performance of the Australian stock market: An event study analysis," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 482-495, September.
    20. Davide Furceri & Siddharth Kothari & Longmei Zhang, 2021. "The effects of COVID‐19 containment measures on the Asia‐Pacific region," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 469-497, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jconsa:v:55:y:2021:i:1:p:151-178. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0022-0078 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.