Fulani on the Move: Seasonal Economic Migration in the Sahel as a Social Process

Most research on short-term rural to urban migration and its impacts takes an economic approach and often emphasises negative aspects of migration, linking it synergistically with rural poverty in sending areas. Data from Fulani migrants in Northern Burkina Faso challenge this pessimistic view of short-term labour migration. Rather than a response to destitution, migration seems to be a useful way in which reasonably prosperous households can further enhance livelihood security. Moreover, factors not easily incorporated into a standard economic analysis, identity and village networks, emerge as being essential to the understanding of migration in this population. Finally, migration emerges as a highly dynamic process, which an ahistorical, static framework of analysis fails to capture.     

Contesting land grabs,negotiating statehood: the politics of international accountability mechanisms and land disputes in rural Cambodia

Abstract

In Cambodia, rural citizens embroiled in protracted land grabbing cases with the state and private companies are turning increasingly to international accountability mechanisms for resolution. This article applies the interlinked concepts of hybrid governance and legal pluralism to understand the prospects and limitations of ‘forum-shopping’ through appeals to international mechanisms for rural communities affected by land grabs. Drawing on interviews and using process tracing, it examines the outcomes of a mediation case filed with the International Finance Corporation’s Compliance Advisor/Ombudsman (CAO) involving indigenous groups and a Vietnamese rubber company in north-east Cambodia. It argues that while international accountability mechanisms yield platforms for dispossessed groups to assert claims, they also reify choices between entitlements and attainability without circumventing the problems associated with justice delivery under Cambodia’s authoritarian regime. Overall, this study highlights the interaction, competition and collaboration between distinct forms of regulatory authority exercised by national and transnational actors involved in land grabbing cases in Cambodia, demonstrating their role in ‘negotiating statehood’ by governing local claims to land.     

Living and working as a domestic worker in the Middle East: the experience of migrant returnees in Girana town,North Wollo,Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This article explores the migration experiences of Ethiopian migrant returnees from domestic work in the Gulf countries and Lebanon. The returnees reside in the town of Girana located in Habru sub-district, North Wollo zone of Amhara region. There is much female work migration to the Arab Middle East from the town, particularly to Saudi Arabia through Muslim pilgrimage. Employing a qualitative method, the study examines how the returnee women perceived and experienced labour migration and analyzes the impacts of labour migration on childcare, family survival back home, and debt payment. The returnees made voluntary regular and irregular labour migration to the region and engaged in domestic work, which is not preferred by the host society. However, domestic work is unregulated by the labour policy of the destination countries. This made the returnees’ employment situation rather exploitative, exacerbating their vulnerability to abuses, ethnic denigration, and undermining of cultural identity.     

Impacts of Migration on Household Production Choices: Evidence from China

Abstract

The great migration from Chinese farms to cities during the past several decades ranks among the most economically consequential of modern population movements. We use a national sample of rice-producing Chinese households to examine the effects of that migration on agricultural production. Our assessment involves evaluating four alternative theories of labour market equilibrium in the framework of an expanded agricultural household model. Migration’s farm production impacts appear to be slight, not on account of farm labour market perfections or remittance-financed technological improvements, but by substituting a reduction in leisure and other low-return activities for lost labour.     

The Moroccan system of labour institutions: a class-based perspective

Abstract

The relevance of workers’ mobilisations in the 2011 Arab uprisings and – more recently – in the Algerian movement for democracy and social justice has encouraged a renewed interest in labour–state relations in the region. This article presents a class-based perspective on labour institutions, taking Morocco as a case study. In contrast to institution-based approaches, this research argues that it is problematic to treat the trade unions as analytical proxies for the working class, because this heuristic move conceals how class struggles – from below and from above – can transcend and transform labour institutions. The article proposes a framework to study labour–state relations, highlighting the relative autonomy of union officials from workers and vice versa. In this way, it shows how, in the neoliberal phase, the Moroccan state increased inducements to the unions while decreasing those to the workers and maintaining significant constraints on workplace organising. To use a simplified formulation, the regime included the unions to exclude the workers. In such a context of low union representativeness, the dangers of reducing the working class to the trade unions emerge clearly.     

Short-term Labour Migration from the Republic of Armenia to the Russian Federation

Abstract

We explore the determinants of short-term labour migration from Armenia to Russia based on a unique panel dataset. A dynamic switching regression model with endogenous switching is applied. Our evidence pinpoints migration experience, the expected individual income gap from migration, low job opportunities in Armenia and the possibility of diversifying income risks as the most important determinants. Family ties turn out to be insignificant. The hypothetical income gap is about 280 per cent. Several explanations are provided for the fact that some individuals do not migrate in spite of a large income gap.     

Visiting Marriages and Remote Parenting: Changing Strategies of Rural–Urban Migrants to Hanoi,Vietnam

Despite the ongoing centrality of marriage and reproduction in Vietnam, family and spousal separation is an increasing reality for many poor rural–urban migrants. We offer a social relational analysis of reproduction to explore how migrant men and women in their peak child-bearing and child-rearing years negotiate conjugal strategies and expectations. Labour migration for these poor men and women involves high costs for family relations, social identities and emotional experiences which are strongly patterned by gender. This social relational analysis of reproduction deepens analyses of changing marriage relations and studies of internal labour migration.     

Can the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme Reduce Rural Out-migration: Evidence from West Bengal,India

Abstract

Using survey data from the Cooch Behar district of West Bengal, the paper documents the impact of the rural employment guarantee scheme in reducing rural out-migration. Using regression framework and case studies, it finds no significant impact of household participation in the programme on migration decision. However, extent of participation in terms of number of days of work and earnings has a significant negative impact on short-term migration but not on longer duration ones. The findings lay emphasis on effective implementation in terms of asset creation, reduction in rationing of works and tackling delayed payments to enjoy its potential benefits.     

The Invisibility of Wage Employment in Statistics on the Informal Economy in Africa: Causes and Consequences

Abstract

This article challenges the claim, along with the statistics that support it, that self-employment is by far the dominant employment status in the informal economy. The article begins by reviewing key insights from relevant literature on the informal economy to argue that conventional notions of ‘wage employment’ and ‘self-employment’, while unfit for capturing the nature and variety of employment relations in developing countries, remain central to the design of surveys on the workforce therein. After putting statistics on Tanzania’s informal economy and labour force into context, the analysis reviews the type of wage employment relationships that can be found in one instance of the informal economy in urban Tanzania. The categories and terms used by workers to describe their employment situation are then contrasted with those used by the latest labour force survey in Tanzania. The article scrutinises how key employment categories have been translated from English into Swahili, how the translation biases respondents’ answers towards the term ‘self-employment’, and how this, in turn, leads to the statistical invisibility of wage labour in the informal economy. The article also looks at the consequences of this ‘statistical tragedy’ and at the dangers of conflating varied forms of employment, including wage labour, that differ markedly in their modes of operation and growth potential. Attention is also paid to the trade-offs faced by policy-makers in designing better labour force surveys.     

From global workers to local entrepreneurs: Sri Lanka’s former global factory workers in rural Sri Lanka

Abstract

Working in Sri Lanka’s urban free trade zones (FTZs) introduces Sri Lanka’s rural women to neoliberal ways of fashioning selves, which subsequently not only shape village entrepreneurial activities but also initiate negotiations in kinship, marriage, domestic arrangements, and community relations. The knowledges and networks that they develop while at the FTZ allow former workers to connect with global production networks as subcontractors, making them part of the cascading system of subcontracting that furthers the precarity of regular FTZ work. This article explores how these former workers manipulate varied forms of capital – social, cultural and monetary – to become local entrepreneurs and community leaders, while simultaneously initiating changes in rural social hierarchies and gender norms. When neoliberal economic restructuring manifests within local contexts it results in new articulations of what it is to be an entrepreneur and what it is to be a worthy, young, married woman. Overall, the paper sheds light on the fragmented and uneven manner in which neoliberal ethos take root in rural South Asia.     

Agriculture and rural out-migration in Central Asia, 1960-91

"This article seeks to analyse agrarian structure and policy in the Soviet period and discuss their effect on migration from rural to urban areas. In the case of [Soviet] Central Asia, neither the various steps to bring down labour intensity in the farm sector, nor the falling standard of living in rural areas, could bring about migration from rural to urban areas. This was because in traditional societies economic mechanisms are not effective unless they are complemented by appropriate social and cultural policies. All policies were oriented towards the state's goal of vertical integration of regions with the central economy. In Central Asia in particular this policy resulted in serious distortions in the social and economic spheres."     

The impact of household income on child labour in urban Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the determinants of child labour in urban Turkey with a special reference to low household income or poverty as one of its root causes. Studies done elsewhere have produced mixed results which necessitate the relationship to be studied at country-level. The data from urban Turkey indicate that children from poorer families stand at a higher risk of employment. This finding is confirmed using various measures of household material well-being. Simulation results have further pointed out that current interventions are not likely to produce a sizeable impact on the child labour problem.     

The role of urban‐to‐rural remittances in rural development

One of the effects of rural‐to‐urban migration is the return of money and resources by the migrants to their respective home areas. Recently, it has been argued by several authors that such remittances represent a significant means for removing supply constraints to improved productivity in agriculture. In this paper the authors examine critically the available evidence on the rural impact of remittances. Subjects covered in the paper include the extent of the urban‐to‐rural remittances, the determinants of such financial flows and the use made in the rural areas of the money received. The paper concludes there is little evidence that urban‐rural remittances have been a significant means to rural economic development.     

Ethiopian female domestic labour migration to the Middle East: patterns,trends, and drivers

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the trends, patterns, and determinants of Ethiopian domestic labour migration to Arab countries. The primary motive behind migration is to move out of poverty and to improve family living standards through remittances. Migration to Arab countries has intensified due to social networks, expansion of illegal agencies, and the relative fall of migration costs. This movement is also the result of a shift in demand away from Asian domestic workers who tend to seek higher wages, to cheap labour source countries such as Ethiopia. This underlines not only the complexity of human mobility across national borders but also indicates the importance of conceptualising this movement in a broader global perspective, going beyond the traditional push-pull factors embedded in origin and destination countries. Female domestic migrants have received marginal attention from policy-makers and their vulnerability to various forms of abuse and exploitation has continued over the years.     

Capital and Labour Mobility and their Impacts on Mexico's Regional Labour Markets

Abstract

This paper studies the effects of capital and labor mobility on real wages across Mexican states for the period 1997–2006. Employing dynamic panel data methods, we find: (1) strong positive effects on real wages from foreign direct investment (FDI) and from migration; (2) domestic and foreign migration provide similar wage effects; and (3) alternative partitions indicate that real wages are more sensitive to FDI-related fluctuations across states with relatively lower wages and migration levels. Overall, these results provide support that real wages respond positively to fluctuations in capital flows and labour movements as predicted from the theory.     

The Labour Market Impacts of Immigration to Developing Countries: Evidence from a Registration Campaign in Thailand

Little is known about the labour market impact of immigration to developing countries, because most immigration to developing countries is poorly measured. We use an unusual dataset from a campaign to register irregular migrants to study how immigration has affected wages, employment, and internal migration in Thailand. We allow for endogenous migration, whereby immigrants are disproportionately attracted to areas with higher wages. Our results suggest that immigration sufficient to increase Thailand's total labour force by one per cent would reduce Thai wages by approximately half a per cent. This effect is stronger than is generally found in developed countries. We find no evidence that immigration has reduced Thai employment rates or has affected internal migration by Thais.     

Climate Instability,Urbanisation and International Migration

This paper focuses on climate-induced migration. We construct a simple theoretical model where, in a first step, climate shocks accelerate the transition from the traditional to the modern sector, leading rural workers to move to urban centres within national borders, while in a second step, downward pressures on wages due to the greater labour supply in cities push people to engage in international migration. To test this hypothesis, we exploit a rich panel dataset, displaying a representative picture of bilateral migration flows and climatic data across 222 countries for the period 1960–2000. Findings suggest that in the next few years the climate-induced growth rate of migrant stocks might be in a range between 8.6 per cent and 12.8 per cent, especially from developing countries, where the level of rural employment is more likely to be affected by climatic shocks.     

Short notes on some books received

China's rural enterprises are economic units established by local government in the countryside or by the peasants and they operate outside the planning system. Rural enterprises have grown twice as fast as the rest of the economy since 1984. The rural enterprise sector has so far challenged the urban economy, in both product markets and markets for raw materials. What are the prospects for their relationship ‐ competition or cooperation? To answer the question, we develop a well‐specified but simple model of the rural and urban economies. The rural enterprise boom was caused in this model by the presence of barriers to factor mobility within China, price distortions and the pool of available labour in the countryside. The origins of the boom imply that rural enterprise exports tend to be relatively labour intensive. The complementarities between rural and urban enterprises are likely to dominate their future economic relationship and lead to further growth in the rural enterprise sector.     

Youth perceptions of violence in Western Honduras

Abstract

Youth violence is a growing challenge worldwide, particularly in countries that are experiencing extreme social disorganisation. This is exemplified in Honduras which has been one of the top five countries in the world for intentional homicides for over 20 years. While many studies have examined youth violence in urban cities, few have researched youth violence in rural zones. This study presents a case study using social disorganisation theory to investigate the perceptions of 40 youth in rural and peri-urban Santa Rosa de Copán, Honduras, regarding what drives violence and the potential solutions. Consistent with social disorganisation theory, our results demonstrate that youth view violence as an opportunity pathway resulting from economic deprivation, disruptions to the family and neighbourhood, lack of or poorly functioning external agencies and conflicting moral values. There are significant gender differences in the results, with young men pointing to several issues that challenge masculine hegemonic gender norms such as the desire for love and belonging, participation in education and the role of policing.     

Empirical Evidence on Human Trafficking and Migration-Debt Contracts in Bangladesh

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the payments illegal migrants make to traffickers. It covers the total amounts of these payments, the incidence of migration-debt (or shared) contracts, and the value of the deferred payment component under these shared contracts. Data on illegal migrants from three field surveys conducted in Bangladesh from April 2009 to November 2010 are used. The results show that the total payments made to traffickers vary with easily observed characteristics (gender, age, marital status) but do not vary with details of the migration process (training provided, time spent in the trafficker’s queue). These relationships are consistent with exploitation. Migration-debt contracts are more prevalent when the costs of illegal migration are relatively high, which adds empirical support to theoretical models such as Friebel and Guriev (2006). Contrary to existing reports, we document variations in fees for illegal passage across individuals.