Trends of livelihood dynamics: A study of agrarian community in the Indian Sundarbans

Over the last two decades burgeoning population growth exerts a continuous pressure on the available resource in the Indian Sundarbans. This increased population growth diminishes percapita agricultural productions and family income as well. Beside this, agricultural production in the Sundarbans is mostly mono-crop based which is often threatened by devastating cyclones and subsequent salt water inundation. Such scenarios of livelihood contexts in the form of shock and seasonality pose serious threats to the agricultural livelihood in the Sundarbans. To combat with this situation people adopt different livelihood strategies like adoption of new techniques, livelihood diversification, and eventually migration. Today, mostly younger age group prefer to migrate in the urban areas for their survival means and decide to settle there permanently. The changing scenario coupled with increasing formal education leads to change agricultural livelihood and causes huge rural to urban migration. To explore different scenarios of livelihood dynamics, the present article aims to unfold the relationship between livelihood contexts and occupational mobility for the agrarian community of the Indian Sundarbans.