Development-Induced Displacement and Psychosocial Well-Being: A Study of Lahore Orange Line Metro Train Project

Abstract

Human displacements, even development-induced, tend to decrease the well-being of the displaced households by making them more vulnerable to poverty. The evidence in this context primarily pertains to economic impacts of displacements with little attention being paid to non-economic, psychological well-being of the displaced. Further, the disruption of social networks in exacerbating the negative impacts on psychological well-being is also rarely accounted for in empirical literature. Against this backdrop, this research study firstly measures the psychological well-being of the displaced people in metropolitan city of Lahore due to the construction of Orange Line Metro Train project and further highlights important role of social networks. The data set of 165 households-comprising 90 displaced and 75 non-displaced families- is gathered through self-administered questionnaire and semi-structured interviews of stakeholders. Psychological well-being of the displaced versus non-displaced families is measured through control and treatment groups and further Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression technique is employed to examine the significance of social networks in mitigating the toll of psychological costs and risk factors (homelessness, joblessness, increased morbidity/health, disruption of education activities) encountered by displaced families during and after the process of displacement. Our findings suggest that psychological well-being of the displaced households is significantly lower than non-displaced. Further, the presence of social networks significantly determines the psychological well-being of the displaced households. The qualitative findings also suggest that during the process of displacement , disruptions of social networks further marginalizes the well-being of displaced families thus making them more vulnerable to poverty.