Exploring the evolving landscape of COVID-19 interfaced with livelihoods

The study addresses how the COVID-19 pandemic, a severe global health crisis, disrupted economies, mobility, and daily life, placing substantial stress on livelihoods and challenging progress toward SDGs, especially SDG1 (zero poverty). While many bibliometric reviews have profiled COVID-19 research across disciplines (geosciences, business/management, social sciences, tourism), a specific gap remains in understanding the intricate relationship between COVID-19 and livelihoods. The purpose is to assess how livelihoods research has been contextualized within COVID-19 and how this influences development trajectories. The study aims to: (i) characterize the global-scale research paradigm on livelihoods; (ii) identify themes most affecting livelihoods during the pandemic; and (iii) explore emerging trends in the post-pandemic scenario using bibliometric analysis to reveal patterns, frontiers, and gaps.

Prior bibliometric and scientometric analyses mapped COVID-19 research in domains such as geosciences (employing machine learning on 1,171 articles), business and management (policy change focus), social sciences, and tourism. These studies highlighted evolving research trends and policy implications. However, there is a noted paucity of systematic analysis that specifically integrates livelihoods as a core construct interfacing with COVID-19. This gap motivates a focused bibliometric exploration of how livelihoods themes (e.g., socio-ecological resilience, poverty, food security, vulnerability) have been researched during different pandemic stages.

The study conducted a bibliometric analysis using the Web of Science Core Collection with the search query "Covid-19 and livelihood." The initial retrieval yielded 1,988 documents. Inclusion criteria: (i) relevance to the topic via keyword matching and manual alignment; (ii) English language; (iii) publication window January 2020–October 2022. A 30% random subset underwent manual validation by an independent team to reduce bias and confirm reliability. The final dataset comprised 1,503 documents. Extracted metadata included titles, authors, affiliations, countries, abstracts, keywords, geographic distribution, keyword networks, and journals. International collaborations recorded all participating countries/institutions, counting each author and each institutional unit involved. Data were exported from WoS and analyzed using VOSviewer (for networks and clustering with visualizations; co-authorship threshold set to at least two shared publications; keyword co-occurrence minimum of five occurrences) and R (bibliometrix package) for statistical and visualization tasks. Geographic analyses used SCImago Graphica. Temporal dynamics were analyzed across three stages: Early (Jan 2020–Jul 2020), Middle (Aug 2020–Dec 2021), and Post-recovery (Jan 2022–analysis date), reflecting outbreak/response, widespread transmission/control measures, and vaccine rollout/gradual normalization, respectively.

- Dataset and temporal dynamics: 1,503 publications across 683 journals. Research output grew rapidly from early 2020, peaking in early 2021, then stabilizing during the post-recovery stage (roughly 52–106 publications per month). January spikes in both 2021 and 2022 were noted. - Disciplinary evolution: Early stage focused on public environmental occupational health, environmental sciences, and economics. Middle stage surged with emphasis on economics, public environmental occupational health, environmental sciences/studies, and development studies. Post-recovery maintained focus on public environmental occupational health with growing attention to economic recovery, environmental sciences/studies, and green sustainable science/technology. - Geographic distribution: Research expanded from a few countries (e.g., USA, India, China) in early stage to 112 countries/regions in the middle stage and 65 in post-recovery. Overall, the USA led with 575 articles, followed by the UK (288), India (151), China (134), South Africa (122), Canada (103), and Australia (98). - Journals: Publications appeared in 683 journals; the top 10 journals accounted for 282 articles (18.76%), while 497 journals (63.35%) published only one paper. - Authorship and collaboration: 8,005 authors contributed to 1,503 publications. Independent authorship accounted for 11.5% of publications. International collaboration exceeded 42%. Average authors per article were 5.69 (with at least five researchers per article on average). Most prolific authors included Bodrud-Doza M. and Rahman M. M. (6 papers each), and Brookes VJ and Gupta A (5 each). There were 297 authors with at least two publications and 59 authors with at least three. - Institutional leaders: The University of Oxford (58 publications) led, followed by the University of Cape Town (53), University of Toronto (43), University of California, Los Angeles (40), Columbus University (38), Johns Hopkins University (37), and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (30). Collaboration networks diversified over time across North America, Europe, South/East Asia, and Africa, though fragmentation increased in middle and later stages. - Keywords and clusters: From 3,795 author keywords (average >12 citations/article), 194 met the threshold (≥5 occurrences). "COVID-19" had 1,072 occurrences. High-frequency terms included poverty (175), food security (56), public health (56), mental health (56), and resilience (46). Eight keyword clusters captured themes: (1) treatment measures/epidemiology and city closures; (2) public health and health policy; (3) food security, agricultural sustainability, malnutrition; (4) vulnerability among population groups; (5) gendered impacts; (6) social justice, human rights, social protection; (7) mental health/illness; (8) regional foci (e.g., South Africa, Bangladesh). Temporal evolution showed early emphasis on epidemiology/poverty, middle-stage focus on public health/policy/housing, and later-stage shifts to mental health, vulnerability, children, and food security.

Findings demonstrate that COVID-19 imposed multifaceted shocks on livelihoods, reshaping research priorities across time and disciplines. The keyword cluster analysis crystallized six overarching thematic directions: coping strategies (impacts of lockdowns, mobility restrictions, education/workforce disruptions, housing constraints for low-income and minority groups); health disparities (disproportionate infection, hospitalization, and mortality among racial/ethnic minorities; overlap with pre-existing comorbidities and resource inequities); poverty and food (food system disruptions, value-chain shocks, heightened insecurity for low- and middle-income settings, variable resilience across systems); mental health (psychological stress from fear, lockdowns, stigma, and discrimination, with implications for long-term productivity and livelihood sustainability); social vulnerability (income, gender, age, race/ethnicity, and geography inflect risk and adaptive capacity; school closures threaten human capital accumulation and widen inequalities); and regional concerns (South Asia, Latin America, and parts of Africa experienced pronounced livelihood capital disruptions, with elderly and rural populations needing targeted support). Across author and institutional networks, collaboration increased but also became more fragmented, suggesting strong regionalization of research responses. These findings collectively address the research questions by outlining the global research paradigm, identifying high-impact livelihood themes during the pandemic, and tracing emerging post-pandemic trends centered on resilience, equity, and recovery.

The study provides a comprehensive bibliometric overview of COVID-19-and-livelihoods scholarship across early, middle, and post-recovery phases. It documents rapid growth and shifting disciplinary emphases, identifies leading countries, journals, authors, and institutions, and maps eight keyword clusters consolidated into six thematic directions. Results indicate substantial fragmentation and regionalization of collaborations alongside significant international cooperation. Policy and research insights emphasize strengthening data sharing and collaborative mechanisms, prioritizing mental and physical well-being, focusing on poverty and food security interventions, and supporting vulnerable regions and groups to advance SDGs by 2030. Future research should investigate long-term impacts, evaluate coping strategies and social protection, and adopt multidisciplinary approaches integrating health, economics, sociology, and environmental sciences to bolster livelihood resilience.

The analysis was limited to English-language publications from January 2020 to October 2022, potentially omitting valuable research in other languages and outside the time window. Although a 30% manual validation reduced selection bias, reliance on a single database (Web of Science Core Collection) and search terms may have excluded relevant studies. Reported collaboration and institutional metrics reflect counting methods that may inflate totals for multi-affiliated authors and multi-country collaborations.