Socioeconomic Vulnerability of City Dwellers during COVID-19 Shock: A Study in Southwestern Coastal Bangladesh

Life is full of challenges. A shocking pandemic in the name of COVID-19 pushed the universe to face different challenges at a time. Bangladesh, a country with coastal region, is well known for dealing with natural disaster every year. A shock like COVID-19, which is completely new, seems pouring water on a drowned mouse. This paper has considered such ongoing problem to study and has aimed to assess the socioeconomic  vulnerability of the southwestern coastal cities of Bangladesh as urban area is main victim of this virus. With a structured questionnaire, 160 household’s data, 80 from each city, Khulna and Satkhira cities, have been collected using multi-stage sampling. Several methods like logit regression model, Gini coefficient, t-test and vulnerability index have assisted to attain the objective. Income is largely affected during COVID-19 lockdown and the occupation and education level of household head is the main reason behind it. Households with per day income and lower education significantly pulled down the incomes. In spite of that fall the level of income inequality is quite low as majority of households faced the negative impact. socioeconomic  vulnerability index shows both Khulna and Satkhira cities are moderately vulnerable but Khulna is more vulnerable compared to the later which is proven significant through t-test. Among the seven dimensions, excluding cross-cutting, the score of vulnerability index of Khulna city is higher than Satkhira city. Both cities are almost equally exposed to be vulnerable, the rest two determinants- sensitivity and adaptive capacity have played the deciding role for deriving different vulnerability index score.

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