Social change, out-migration, and exit from farming in Nepal
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Social change, out-migration, and exit from farming in Nepal Dirgha J. Ghimire 1
& William
G. Axinn 1
& Prem
Bhandari 1
Accepted: 15 September 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Though international out-migration is widespread, little evidence exists regarding the consequences for economic change in sending countries, particularly in the densely populated agricultural areas of Asia. We examine associations between labor outmigration, remittances, and agricultural change in Nepal. Existing studies of this important population-environment relationship generally ignore the role of local community context, which is known to shape demographic behavior and likely exit from farming as well. Research offers opposing views of the consequences of out-migration for agricultural change—(1) loss of farm labor reduces engagement in agriculture, versus (2) loosening credit constraints from remittances increases engagement in agriculture—and indicates that both mechanisms likely operate simultaneously. Both of these mechanisms are likely to be shaped by changes in local context. Using multilevel dynamic models, we estimate associations between out-migration and remittances by household members and subsequent exit from farming, controlling for variations in community context. Results suggest international out-migration is associated with higher odds of exit from farming and simultaneously remittances are associated with lower odds of exit from farming. Results are robust against several key variations in model specification, including controls for household characteristics and local community context. However, local community context exerts an important independent influence on the hazard of exit from farming. Keywords Out-migration . Exit from agriculture . South Asia . Social change
International labor migration has become widespread, with economic and social consequences for both sending and receiving populations. An estimated 271 million people (over 3% of the world’s population), are living outside their country of origin
* Dirgha J. Ghimire [email protected]
1
Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, P.O. Box 1248, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1248, USA
Population and Environment
(Migration Data Portal 2019). This mass movement of people, mostly from lowincome, subsistence agricultural settings to high-income, industrialized countries, results in the flow of money from migrant-receiving to migrant-sending countries. The receipt of remittances back home induces changes in household structures and agricultural systems. Previous studies focused on the consequences of migration and remittances on consumptive (Adams Jr. 2011; Dustmann and Görlach 2016; Hoermann and Kollmair 2009) and productive investment (de Haas 2007; Stark and Bloom 1985; Taylor and Martin 2001) and poverty reduction (Devkota 2014; Lokshin et al. 2010), but give little attention to community factors that can affect both demographic behaviors and agricultural change. We use prospective, multilevel panel data on agricultural households in
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