Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a qualitative comparative analysis to understand the diversity of the ‘impact’ of labour out-migration on rural change better by identifying the combinations of causes that explain its diversity in the 19 regions studied, to contribute to regionally specific policy.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presenmts a qualitative comparative analytical approach to understand the obsrved diversity of the ‘impact’ of labour out-migration on rural change better by identifying the combinations of causes that explain its diversity in the 19 regions. The paper’s approach combines the notion of configurational causality of established QCA methods, a combinatorial approach that emphasises multiple causation, with a focus on causes as ‘generative mechanisms’ as used in realist evaluation methods.

First, a selective overview of the empirical and conceptual literature establishes our starting point that the impact of large-scale labour out-migration on rural change in sending regions is diverse and that existing approaches have difficulty explaining that diversity satisfactorily. We discuss, in section 3, the qualitative comparative analysis approach used to make sense of that diversity. Sections 4, 5 and 6 are the three steps of the analysis. Section 4 categorises the ’outcomes’ for the 19 regions studies, that is the role that labour out-migration plays in rural change, section 5 discusses the ‘mechanisms and conditions’ that generate these outcomes, while finally section 6 presents the ‘configurations’ of causes that explain the diversity of outcomes. We conclude in section 7 by summarising the main findings and discussing their policy relevance.

The policy relevance of the paper’s analysis lies in the promise that it can analytically ground more regionally specific policies and programmes to enhance the (positive) contribution of labour out-migration to rural change, against the currently often dominating standardised, and not particularly effective, approaches at national and international levels.

Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to understand how overseas labour migration is shaping inequalities in rural Nepal at a time of agrarian and ecological stress. It shows that remittance flows and migration outcomes largely parallel pre-existing economic position and migration is critical for class reproduction.

Paper long abstract:

Overseas labour migration has increased exponentially in Nepal over the last three decades. While agrarian stress associated with climate change, rising costs and rural monetisation set the context within which migration takes place - the search for work overseas is by no means restricted to the rural poor, or the wealthy, and households from across the socio-economic spectrum have left for work overseas in recent years. This paper explores the diverse migration employment trajectories and long term migration outcomes amongst farmers who are situated differently in the agrarian structure. It shows that while there are well publicised migration 'success stories', these are restricted largely to those who already had wealth and assets prior to working abroad. For a majority, migration meets part of the households simple reproduction needs, with limited scope for accumulation, and for some of the poorest households, it actually drives them further into poverty. These relationships are largely due to the migration infrastructure whereby those with the ability to pay, can secure more coveted migration opportunities with greater scope for upward mobility. At the same time an exploitative network of intermediaries, mean that a subset of migrants from marginalised socio-economic backgrounds are vulnerable to deception by employers and exploitation - conditions which often result in return migration under distress and debt. Set against this context, we show that rural out-migration is contributing to a reproduction of the existing rural agrarian structure.

Paper short abstract:

Using data from 13 villages in southern China, this paper uses the QCA method to identify multi-factor configurations including rural labor migration and other factors on agricultural production changes. Rural labor migration does not necessarily promote the labor saving in agricultural production.

Paper long abstract:

The migration of rural labor is a worldwide phenomenon in developing country, while there are fewer studies on the impact of labor migration on agriculture in resource community. QCA method can be used to explore the positive or negative effects of multi-factor configuration including rural labor migration on agricultural production changes. Using data from 13 villages in 2008,2014 and 2019 in southern China, this paper identifies multi-factor configurations including rural labor migration, topography, land resources, local economic factor, non-agricultural employment, and other factors on agricultural production changes. It provided theoretical reference for the policy design in agricultural production.

The research conclusions include: (1) the realization of agricultural production mechanization and light simplification have certain conditional factors; (2) There were significant differences in the influence of conditional variables on the labor saving mode adoption in agricultural production, namely rural labor migration, topography, natural endowment, land resources, agricultural dependence, cash crop dependence, local economic development level, non-agricultural employment opportunities and rural land rights confirmation degree. (3) Although rural labor migration has led to a shortage of agricultural labor and brought remittance income to rural households, it does not necessarily promote the mechanization and simplification of agricultural production; (4) economic developed areas with high dependence on cash crops are more likely to promote labor saving technology adoption in agricultural production.

Paper short abstract:

The paper will address the outcomes of policies promoting the nexus between migration and rural development by specifically focusing on the Moldovans who had a migration experience in Italy

Paper long abstract:

Since the late ’90s, the Republic of Moldova has experienced an enduring economic crisis that has led to increasing out-migration flows. Several forms of mobility (circular, short and long-term) have become key strategies for the diversification of the livelihoods of rural households. Acknowledging remittances as potential leverage for rural development, the State and international institutions have launched programs (e.g. DAR 1+3, PARE 1+1, etc.) to enhance the migration-rural development nexus and, specifically, to channel migrants’ remittances into small-scale investments in rural areas. Such policies, though, seem to achieve uneven results: while smallholders tend to use remittances for everyday expenses, a minority of Moldovan citizens exploit existing policies to start or implement agri-food and agro-tourism businesses. The paper will introduce the factors shaping the success stories of rural entrepreneurs who started innovative income-generating activities in Moldova to reflect more broadly on how the outcomes of policies aimed at making the most of emigration may be affected by the specific material conditions faced by the Moldovan diaspora in specific destination countries. Drawing on qualitative data collected between 2020 and 2022 in Moldova and Italy, the paper will particularly focus on both the perception and the use made of policies that connect migration and rural development by Moldovans who had a mobility or settlement experience in Italy.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the role of migration in agricultural and rural change. It develops a comparative approach to demonstrate to what extent emigration conditions the changes observed in three rural regions.

Paper long abstract:

Emigration is known to be the source of material contributions and income support for families remaining in the country. In addition, it is a factor of demographic, economic and socio-cultural change at the regional and national level.

The forms of migration revealed by the survey in the three regions no longer show a causal determinism in which migration is driven primarily by the lack of means of subsistence, insofar as migration occurs crosses the different social strata. We argue that international migration in its regular form, which has become expensive, is only accessible to members of the wealthiest households.

We put forward the hypothesis that in the regions of migration the agricultural and rural dynamics are governed by several mechanisms, among which migratory incomes are included without being the only ones. Other factors make the difference: the savings made at the farm level, the social capital mobilized to have easy access to financial resources, subsidies and credit, and accessibility to natural resources (water, land, rangelands), as well as the opportunity to place a member in the administration or take advantage of an off-farm job offer at the local level and/or in urban centres.

The question is to know how emigration ‘works’ and to what extent it conditions the changes noted at the level of the households and territories of origin of the migrants.

The comparative approach that this article intends to develop is based on empirical materials, collected as part of the H2020 AgruMig Project in 3 regions of Morocco, the Tadla plain, the Upper Moulouya-Eastern High Atlas and the Oasis of Figuig.

Paper short abstract:

The paper show that migration effects on agrarian transformation in Kyrgyzstan are diverse and socio-ecological contexts should be considered as important framework to understand these diversity of the outcomes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper compares and analyzes the migration and agrarian change in the diverse settings of mountainous agro-ecological areas of post-socialist Kyrgyzstan. Given the complexity of mobility and country environmental diversity, this paper explores the transformative pathways which migration has on agricultural transformations in different agro-ecological areas of Kyrgyzstan. Instead of simplifying narrative about dominated effects of migration on agriculture we are showing diversity of pathways. Our study enriches understanding of impact of migration on agrarian transformations in post-socialist context and call to consider regional diversity as an important imperative in formulating migration and agrarian policies. Research findings help to define regional migration profiles and elaborate agrarian change after de-collectivization reforms.

Paper short abstract:

In this paper, we examine the formal and informal pathways for labour migration from Thailand's Udon Thani province to South Korea, which are parallel but connected with various dimensions of migration infrastructure as well as how female migrants can access and experience these pathways.

Paper long abstract:

Migration studies have recently taken a 'infrastructural turn', which has given insight into the emergence and functions of different aspects of migration infrastructure focusing on how these infrastructures mobilize migrants. The gendered dimension of low-skilled labour migration pathways and infrastructures, as well as their entanglements with migrants' subjectivities, remains underexplored. This paper aims to analyze the authorized and unauthorized labour migration pathways from the rural areas of Udon Thani province, Thailand to South Korea, which are parallel but connected and intersect with various dimensions of the migration infrastructure and how female migrants can access and experience these pathways. Having limited access to the official migration pathway through the Employment Permit System (EPS), female migrants often resort to unauthorized pathways. This can have different implications for the individual trajectories, which are analyzed to illustrate how infrastructure and migrant trajectories have become entangled in complex intersecting entanglements. Drawing on migration histories of returned migrants, in-depth interviews with aspiring migrants, as well as semi-structured interviews with migrant sending households and stakeholder interviews collected in the Udon Thani province of Thailand and Interviews with Thai labour migrants in Korea collected between April and September 2022, this study presents nuanced understandings of female migrants' lived experiences of low skilled migration infrastructures by (re)centering on migrants' own agencies, desires, and life-courses.

Keywords:

Migration Infrastructures, Female Labour migration, migration aspirations and capabilities, low-skilled migration, migration pathways, irregular migration