Maintaining Quality of Life During the Pandemic: Managing Economic, Social, and Health Well-Being Amid the COVID-19 Crisis of Agricultural Entrepreneurs

Abstract

Every sphere of life is being impacted by COVID-19, but little is known about how the pandemic is affecting agricultural entrepreneurs' quality of life in developing nations. Therefore, this study examined how COVID-19 affected agricultural entrepreneurs' quality of life by utilizing the data collected from 220 females and 1501 males through multistage purposive and random sampling methods. The dataset was analyzed using ordered logistic regression and principal component analysis. The study results indicated that female agricultural entrepreneurs' quality of life was more adversely affected than that of male agricultural entrepreneurs during COVID-19. The findings also showed that male and female agricultural entrepreneurs with a lower socioeconomic status were more severely impacted than male and female agricultural entrepreneurs with a higher socioeconomic status. More female agricultural entrepreneurs compared to males reported that the pandemic had a negative impact on their mental health. More than two-thirds of both male and female agricultural entrepreneurs reported that the pandemic had a negative impact on their ability to purchase both food and non-food items. Similar to this, a sizable majority of people of both sexes stated that COVID-19 had an impact on their ability to access medical facilities. The results also showed that COVID-19 had a greater impact on married agricultural entrepreneurs' quality of life than on single people. Therefore, a paradigm shift in agricultural policy is required for the pandemic response to account for COVID-19's various effects on different genders and socioeconomic groups in rural areas.