Coping Strategies of Urban Poor Households in Bangladesh During the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper forwards the coping strategies of urban poor of Bangladesh during COVID-19 pandemic situation. Bangladeshis used a variety of coping mechanisms during the pandemics of corona virus. It is significant to distinguish the communal coping strategies during the rapid recovery of a pandemic, as this helps to expect the concerns, especially in the livelihood assets. The study was empirical in nature in the sense that it has explored data derived from Questionnaire Survey, In-depth interview, Focus Group Discussion (FGD), Case Study and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs). Findings from the survey analysis reveal that urban poor experienced unique stresses and hardships during COVID‐19, During the COVID-19 epidemic, Bangladesh’s urban poor experienced many difficulties, and their coping mechanisms demonstrated both their creativity and the brutal reality of their situation. The main strategies were resilience and innovation, adaptation to Health Guidelines and hungriness, community support network, aid from GO, NGOs, job switching, selling their furniture and fixed assets, shifting their residence, reducing their consumption adjusting with more activities and so on. This study also finds a few of the respondent which are unforeseen transitory financial stress, psychosocial stress, and marketplace and consumption‐related stresses. Based on the appraisal theory of stress, our data analysis reveals that two emotion-focused coping strategies—social support and religiosity—coexist and work together to help people in Bangladesh, a developing nation, overcome their well-being issues. As a result, managers and policymakers that aim to address the serious effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on socioeconomically subsistence customers could find it especially interesting.