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The literature has acknowledged that good health is a crucial component of well-being. This study explores the country-specific understanding of slum dwellers' occupational activities and their environmental behavior.

Using the environmentally responsible behavior model, the study utilized exploratory qualitative approach to purposely sample 35 respondents, who responded to health-related behaviors through in-depth interviews.

Findings show that respondents are engaged in diverse socio-economic occupational activities such as selling of cooked and uncooked food in polythene bags, selling of sachet water and burning the waste generated from these activities in the slum environment. In addition, the study found specific occupational activities of masons, carpenters, tilers, salon beauticians, scrap dealers and unhygienic waste disposal in the slums. Finally, this study uncovered divided opinions in terms of respondents' environmental responsibility and awareness of environmental ramifications. Therefore, issues such as health hazards, unhealthy environment and soil deterioration are common at the slum dwellings.

The study findings and the conclusion drawn cannot be generalized to represent the entire population of slum dwellers in Ghana due to the qualitative methodology employed.

This study revealed a country-specific understanding of the environmentally responsible behavior of slum dwellers based on their occupational activities, which can inform health policies.

The outcome of this study advanced contextual culturally specific understanding, concerning health-related behavior of slum dwellers, which is important to policymakers and practitioners in contexts.

In the space of slums are many stakeholders; the extent to which their assistance contributes to slum administration is sparsely studied. The study aims to examine how external stakeholders contribute to slum administration within the Ghanaian context.

Using the stakeholder theory, the study used an exploratory qualitative design based on face-to-face, in-depth interviews among 21 respondents. Participants were purposively selected from stakeholder organisations and slum residents based on the stake in slums governance in Ghana.

The results indicate that stakeholders have contributed towards slums livelihoods in the general areas of housing, trading, skill development and capacity building. It shows that stakeholders’ contributions tend to enhance slums’ living conditions and affect local assemblies positively. The study finds that slum dwellers categorise stakeholders’ contributions as short-term relief and long-term solutions. Additionally, it emerged that in the areas of policy design, implementation and policy feedback, external stakeholders have supported the government in that regard.

The conclusion drawn from the study is limited to the four communities and the stakeholder organisations. However, communities with similar characteristics globally might benefit from the findings.

The study uncovers a context-specific role and assistance of external stakeholders in the domain of slums. This provides a guide to the government regarding key areas of stakeholder collaboration towards slum governance in the Ghanaian context. Theoretically, this study has contributed to new knowledge about stakeholders’ contribution to the overall governance of slums.

The study expands the frontiers of knowledge in the field of slum administration by focusing on external stakeholders. This study departs from previous studies, which have examined, in broader perspectives, stakeholders’ roles within the space of slums.

Securing a job in an industry is a boon for most of the slum dwellers. When the primary earner of a slum household suffers from occupational illness and injuries, without insurance coverage or partial coverage of insurance, this boon may become a curse in the long run. The occupational security and safety along with the fact that whether such workers are insured is an important aspect and has a close link with the expenditure on illness. Thus, the accessibility to employees’ insurance in the risky industrial occupation, particularly for slum dwellers, is crucial to protect them from falling into poverty. Studies on occupational health of the poor workers are either limited to informal sectors or remain industry specific and the analysis of their accessibility to job insurance is rarely done. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The research questions are framed to analyze the types of insurance accessible to workers across various industries; the accessibility to insurance, however, varying across risk intensities of various industries; and the determinants of insurance accessibility of the industrial workers living in slums. The determinants of accessibility of job insurance are analyzed with a binary Logit model. A multi-stage random sampling technique is used to collect the primary data from 320 industrial workers living in the slums of the Indian state of West Bengal.

The industrial workers, irrespective of the types of industries, are exposed to a high-risk category without proper job insurance. The higher industrial income is not adequate to prevent financial hardships. Access to insurance is more likely for the respondents with job tenure of more than two years and less likely for the workers who are working for more than eight hours per day.

This study provides a significant insight to the policymakers concerning health dynamics of the slum dwellers, which can improve their livelihood.

The analysis of the industry-specific risk intensities with accessibility to insurance contributes to understanding the coverage of the insurance scheme for the workers in slums.

This chapter deals with an important but neglected aspect of female labor force participation (FLFP) in urban India. Contemporary literature typically focuses on the entire urban sector and ignores one important aspect of urban living – the slums and its dwellers. This study fills that critical gap by examining two different household surveys side-by-side: a primary survey of households living in slums and slum-rehabilitated colonies, and the nationally representative Indian Human Development survey-II. This study brings outs a comparative picture of nature/type of FLFP and its various correlates from both slum and non-slum areas of three metro cities of India, viz. Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. It further explores the similarities and the differences of the correlates for FLFP among the slum clusters of these cities. It is found that despite being poorer and marginalized, the slum dwelling women’s LFP rate is not extra-ordinarily high vis-á-vis their non-slum urban counterparts. In slums, a higher proportion of women are engaged in self-employment (including family business) and casual employments (includes domestic helps), whereas in non-slum areas relatively more women are engaged in regular salaried jobs. Regression analysis identifies correlates that have similar effects, but with different intensity, across-the-board – relationship between education and FLFP reflects a flat-bottom J-shaped pattern; being married, higher child dependency ratio and household heads with higher education significantly constrain women’s work choice; strong income effect of other household members earning on FLFP, but asset holding has no bearing. However, there are other factors that affect FLFP differently in slums and non-slum areas. Policy prescriptions are drawn.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the case of the Museum of Favela (MUF), which is a NGO set in Rio de Janeiro to develop renewed images of slums, based on their history of resistance and cultural production. The purpose is to uncover the nuances of this peculiar case, in which a group of slums' residents plays the role of place brand managers.

Using a combination of participant observation, document analysis and a series of in‐depth interviews with participants and partners alike, the paper identifies main motivations, networks and actions driving the strategy.

The major aim of the approached place branding is to tackle deeply‐rooted prejudices against slums and their residents. By expanding residents' networks and skills, MUF supports tourism‐related activities that allow the construction and promotion of new meaning for slums. Despite remarkable gains, scaling up community engagement is still a big challenge for the consolidation of the aspired images.

While current approaches to informal settlements deal mainly with housing and infrastructure access, the perception of residents is clearly neglected. Focusing on the image re‐construction, the paper offers relevant insights for slum upgrading policy frameworks.

This paper focuses on the incorporation of a place branding strategy as an attempt of urban inclusion developed on the ground and on the use of slums' cultural heritage – so far overlooked in policy frameworks – to generate re‐imaged slums.

One major impact of demonetisation is rise of cashless or digital transactions. The extension of the transition from a cash-based to a cashless economy has expanded even more now, based on the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter discusses the various electronic payment methods used by the people, the frequency of using these methods and also to examine the reasons of changing habits in using electronic modes of payments. This study is both theoretical and empirical in nature, based on both primary and secondary data. Digitalising rural and poor population is much in talks but earlier literature did not acknowledge the status of slums and its inhabitants. Slum dwellers are the ones to be in the margin, and therefore are subject to more societal sufferings. In the context of female population particularly, the mechanism of urbanisation and increment in urban slums are subject to unique causes and unique consequences, and still these challenges are greatly underexplored by earlier literature in this field. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to find out the schemes, achievements and challenges for the cashless transaction practised by the female slum dwellers. To be extremely explicit, the sample area consists of two biggest slums of Kolkata and 100 female respondents are inquired for this study, taking 50 from each slum. For analysing the collected data, descriptive statistics tools and percentage analysis have been used. This chapter will also analyse India's gradual transition towards a cashless economy. Through the examination of digitalisation of slum dwellers, this study also attempts to identify whether digital modes result in empowerment of these women, of any kind. By paying a visit in the discussion of women empowerment, this chapter wants to revisit the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by world leaders in 2015, that embodies a roadmap for progress which leaves no one behind. The questions impacting achievement of SDG through women empowerment may not seem of utmost concern during the current situation but is equally important and needs to be discussed on a platform of its own.

This study investigate urban migrant dwellers’ gender and age differences in response to the specific phobia of COVID-19 and hesitancy toward vaccines in the slum settlements.

The study anchored on the two-factor model proposed by Mowrer (1939) and used a quantitative design approach with a convenience sampling method for data gathering among 362 urban migrants residing and working in the cities of Ghana. The study used the Mann–Whitney U test and the regression analysis for the analysis.

The result showed that there is a significant difference between males and females in their understanding of economic phobia, thoughts on social phobia and perception level of vaccine hesitancy. Additionally, there is a significant difference between age groups in their level of thoughts of psychological phobia, economic phobia and thoughts of vaccine hesitancy. Finally, the specific of phobias of COVID-19 are significant predictors of vaccine hesitancy.

This research is slum-specific, which implies that the outcome cannot be generalized to other geographical settings.

The study demonstrates how a pandemic manifests itself to dwellers in slums. The outcome of the study sheds light on how policymakers appreciate the dynamics of the pandemic in a developing country, which may guide future responses to pandemics.

The outcome of the study sheds light on how policymakers appreciate the dynamics of the pandemic in a developing country, which may guide future responses to pandemics.

This study aims to assess housing affordability and estimate demand using a hedonic regression model in the context of Lucknow city, India. This study assesses housing affordability by considering various housing and household-related variables. This study focuses on the impoverished urban population, as they experience the most severe housing scarcity. This study’s primary objective is to understand the demand dynamics within the market comprehensively. An understanding of housing demand can be achieved through an examination of its characteristics and components. Individuals consider the implicit values associated with various components when deciding to purchase or rent a home. The components and characteristics have been obtained from variables relating to housing and households.

A socioeconomic survey was conducted for 450 households from slums in Lucknow city. Two-stage regression models were developed for this research paper. A hedonic price index was prepared for the first model to understand the relationship between housing expenditure and various housing characteristics. The housing characteristics considered for the hedonic model are dwelling unit size, typology, condition, amenities and infrastructure. In the second stage, a regression model is created between household characteristics. The household characteristics considered for the demand estimation model are household size, age, education, social category, income, nonhousing expenditure, migration and overcrowding.

Based on the findings of regression model results, it is evident that the hedonic model is an effective tool for the estimation of housing affordability and housing demand for urban poor. Various housing and household-related variables affect housing expenditure positively or negatively. The two-stage hedonic regression model can define willingness to pay for a particular set of housing with various attributes of a particular household. The results show the significance of dwelling unit size, quality and amenities (R² > 0.9, p < 0.05) for rent/imputed rent. The demand function shows that income has a direct effect, whereas other variables have mixed effects.

This study is case-specific and uses a data set generated from a primary survey. Although household surveys for a large sample size are resource-intensive exercises, they provide an opportunity to exploit microdata for a better understanding of the complex housing situation in slums.

All the stakeholders can use the findings to create an effective housing policy. The variables that are statistically significant and have a positive relationship with housing costs should be deliberated upon to provide the basic standard of living for the urban poor. The formulation of policies should duly include the housing preferences of the economically disadvantaged population residing in slum areas.

This paper uses primary survey data (collected by the authors) to assess housing affordability for the urban poor of Lucknow city. It makes the results of the study credible and useful for further applications.

This paper aims to explore the responses of households in the informal economic sector to the Cameroon Government strategy against Covid-19 in Yaounde, Cameroon between March and May 2020.

Given the recency of Covid-19, the exploratory design was used to collect and analyse information for the study. Empirical data was obtained through personal observations and questionnaires, whereas grey data were sourced from official sources in government and international agencies in Yaounde. The mode of the ordinal data generated from the questionnaire was used to characterise the attitudes of respondents to quarantine measures and bar charts were used to illustrate the distribution of responses.

The government’s strategy against Covid-19 was largely ignored in Yaounde between March and May 2020 because of the influence of the predominantly informal economy on household’s ability to allocate scarce resources between the competing needs of protecting their health on the one hand, and their livelihoods on the other hand. Poor households had to walk a difficult line between shutting down their businesses to protect their health or risking Covid-19 infections to protect their livelihoods. Over 53.1% of respondents thought quarantine measures were unsuccessful as over 63% ignored them. Quarantining and Social distancing were also difficult in informal settlements because of structural congestion.

Perhaps, the greatest limitation of this study was the use of non-probability sampling. As such, sampling error could not be estimated, blurring the ability to ascertain the degree of similarity between the sample and the study population. This made sample generalisability difficult.

There are short-term and long-term policy implications of these findings. Basic comprehensive measures including food and water distribution, as well as rent holidays, must be implemented in informal neighbourhoods to ensure more successful quarantines in future pandemics. In the long run, investments in urban social housing must be carried out to reduce slums, an ever-present risk factor in the rapid propagation of infections.

The originality of this study is first, in its level of analysis which is the household. By measuring household responses to quarantine measures within defined neighbourhoods, the study deviates from most that have adopted a theoretical approach and conducted analysis at country or regional levels. Few studies have attempted to investigate the failure of quarantine measures against Covid-19 from the viewpoint of the occupational characteristics of the populations involved.

This chapter presents a quantitative description of the living conditions in a slum area of an intermediate Argentinean city during the outburst of the Covid-19 crisis using primary data collected four months after the lockdown measures had been introduced. The sample represents 1,500 households which claimed food assistance over this period, and whose deprivations and presence of young members are similar to that of 13% of the city’s population and 23% of the country’s population. Rough estimates suggest a disproportionate drop in employment and a disproportionate increase in unemployment in the area compared to those registered in the aggregate of the main urban agglomerations of the country. Cash transfers implemented during the lockdown, together with in-kind food aid from schools, the municipal government, and the church with non-governmental organizations, entailed a substantial average increase in the coverage of the cost of the basic food basket. However, non-trivial fractions of households were not covered by any of the main cash transfers. Also, and despite efforts, food insecurity could not be avoided. Considering the similarity of the sample to significant fractions of the country’s urban population, the deprivations experienced over 2020 by groups which were already in poverty before the Covid-19 arrival, raise alarms on the future well-being of these populations, especially for infants and children. Novel policies are required, addressing the various critical needs in an interconnected way, integrating the different stakeholders that have proven to be key in assisting these households during such an unprecedented covariate shock.