Internal migration and family dynamics

Migration to the city or abroad has been adapted as a livelihood strategy by village families in rural Java Indonesia. Adult children support their parents’ economy while husbands or wives left their spouses and children in the village to make ends meet. In term of rural-urban migration within Indonesia, migrants prefer to migrate in non-permanent basis in the form of circulation, weekly or monthly, while international contract workers are naturally in inviduals basis. This living arrangement choice of migrants created a phenomenon of divided households between migrants in the destination areas and the rest of family left behind in the villages. The wives or husbands work and/or maintain the children in the villages, while the husbands or wives work in the city or abroad. The phenomenon of home divided is universal, as a consequence of migration. People migrate from less develop economic regions or countries to the more advance economic areas. The phenomenon of divided home has significant impacts upon household structure and functioning in origin and destination regions or countries, and family solidity. This paper is based on secondary sources of migration and family studies conducted in rural Java, Indonesia in the last twenty years.

Whereas partnered men seem to gain economically from moving to a new place, partnered women seem to loose from it. Common attempts to explain this male dominance include gender differences in bargaining power and traditional gender roles. In this study, I am interested in the importance of the different occupations women and men hold. Female dominated occupations might have a secondary migration status and it has been argued that this is why women do not gain from migration. I test this hypothesis using Swedish population data, 1997-2007, including all individuals who are employed and have at least one common child with their partner. I follow their income development up until 5 years after migration is measured. Preliminary results reveal better income development for moving couples compared to staying couples. There is no individual gain for women, only for men. The woman’s share of the couple income increases faster for moving then for non-moving couples. However, even 5 years after the potential move, women in moving couples contribute to a lower share of the total couple income compared to women in staying couples. Next steps include doing OLS regressions for examining how the pattern changes when adjusting for gender differences in occupational characteristics.

The study attempts to analyses the factors that influence gender-wise amounts remitted by internal migrants to their families in their native village, its utilization pattern and impact on household living standards. It also examines the reasons for migration, its benefits and problems experienced by the migrants. The study is based on primary data collected from a random sample of 120 respondents, comprising 60 males and females each of selected four villages of Puri district in Orissa state, India. The objectives of the study are examined using simple averages, ratios, percentages, Garret ranking technique and OLS multiple regressions. Regardless of gender, the findings show that migration has improved the migrants’ income and employment status. It has also improved the standard of living of their households in the native villages, consumption expenditure and savings, besides helping to repay debts. The remittance function reveals rise in income, age labour supply and being a male to be significantly increasing it, and marital status and better standard of living to be significantly decreasing it. The study recommends implementation of employment and micro-credit schemes in the study area to contribute to employment generation within the home villages, besides provisions of social security schemes for the workers.

Literature shows that effect parental absence due to migration and death on child educational outcomes is mixed. Children whose parents are dead or absent for a long time have been found to perform poorly in school (Wright, 2010), while temporary migration seems to have adverse effect on aspiration for higher levels of education among children (Kandel and Kao, 2001). But evidence from Guatemala shows that remittance from migration enables households to spend more on education and reap better returns than non-remittance-receiving households (Adam, 2005), while paternal migration in early life of a daughter increases her educational attainment by a year in Mexico (Antman, 2012). These mixed results could be attributed to contextual factors such as state educational policies that mediate the effects of parental migration on child educational outcomes. I would like to argue that contextual factor such as state policy of free education can neutralise the effect of parental migration on child educational outcomes. Using discrete-time logit event history model on longitudinal data from Agincourt Health and Population Unit, South Africa, preliminary results show that state educational policy such as free education seems to neutralise the effect of parental labour migration on child educational outcomes among rural populations.

Female migration within India is highly variable in terms of their tendencies to migrate depending on their social status, socioeconomic positions at origin, religion, regional cultural differences, and demand for female labour. However, more recently female migration have increased and diversified. Women with rural origin are increasingly on move to India’s dynamic urban. This study tried to understand the extent of social contacts of female migrants at place of origin and destination and neighbourhood relations at destination. The paper is based on quantitative data collected from 585 female migrants and few in-depth interviews conducted in eight densely populated slums of Mumbai. Findings suggest female migrants feel well adjusted in the city. They not only have high interaction with people from other caste and religion in their neighbourhood but also trust them and rely on them for support. Those with longer duration of stay have developed higher support at the destination.

This study describes constructs and patterns of positive child development in several important respects of child developmental outcomes, compares children of non-migrant families with left-behind children with one or both parents working in the cities, and explores the role of social support in predicting positive child development and mediating or moderating the parental migration effects. Data used in this study were from a longitudinal study on rural children conducted in Yulin City, Guangxi Province in 2010 with social support variables measured in wave 1 and child developmental outcomes measured in wave 2; the two waves were six months apart. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression analyses were conducted to examine associations of parental migration and social support with the outcome variables controlling for demographic characteristics. Preliminary results show that among the four aspects of positive development, only mental well-being exhibits significant group differences with children without parental migration the most advantaged and children with two-parent migration most disadvantaged. Teacher support and family support are significant and beneficial for some outcomes in some subgroups of children but peer support is never significant in the presence of teacher and family support.

The number of incoming migrant women married to Korean locals is continuously increasing from the turn of 21st entury. Issues related to the adaptation of these women to the new country include overall satisfaction of basic needs such as language, education, and health, and material affluence such as earnings and housings in the early stage of settlement. Although it is essential to examine the psychological adaptation and happiness levels of those women, studies that found the factors on the subjective life satisfaction among this population is seriously lacking. For this reason, it is crucial to examine life satisfaction that reflects the hardships and the level of living of those women in Korean society. This study is interested in social capital as the way of independently sustaining self-supporting lives for future oriented improvement. The study found that life satisfaction was higher when the migrant women were with children, no Korean citizenship, no work experience, and dwelling in rural areas rather than urban areas. More specifically, positive associations were found with households’ income levels and social participation, but negatively with ages and periods of residence.

The dynamics of out-migration is an intrinsic part of development process. The process of out-migration may unfold itself differently in two different regions. A poor household may adopt the strategy of out-migration to supplement the basic necessities of its survival; while in better-off household out-migration can be an accumulative strategy to improve its relative position in society. Bihar and Punjab are two different regions of India which retain a long tradition of out-migration. Out-migration from Bihar is considered as a support system for the poor family, associated to underdevelopment in the region. Out-migration from Punjab, which is mostly inter-national in its nature, taken up mostly by well-off families. The evidence from NSS 64th Round, shows a clear variation in the process and pattern of out-migration. From Bihar, migration from family of agricultural laborer is highest, who are poorest, while in Punjab Migration of farmers is higher, who are richest in the region. Amount of remittance received by the household of Punjab is clearly very high compared to the household of Bihar. However, remittance in both of the state is mostly being used in consumption needs. It shows the importance of migration for sustainability of livelihood in both undeveloped and advance region.

The paper draws upon quantitative evidence to develop a portrait of developing-country adolescent girls and young women who migrate to cities and towns. The evidence comes in the form of a large number of
well-standardized censuses and demographic surveys, supplemented with studies of individual countries and regions. Many types of evidence are needed to illuminate girls’ lives, but knowledge of the size of
migration flows and their demographic composition is essential to understanding the scale of program resources required to reach girls in need, and to get a sense of where within a country those resources should
be directed.

Though Indian migration scenario is male dominated but the trend is changing. The 64th round of National Sample Survey of India indicated that rural-rural female migration was substantially high in most of the states. The main objective of this paper was that to study the reasons for female migration (Rural and Urban) and Labour force participation of women in major states of India. In recent analysis of NSSO data shows that illiterates and graduate and above women’s are highly migrates for employment causes and monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE) of 5th quintile groups very high in urban areas. Migration of graduate and above educated women was greater from urban areas. Most of the women migrated for marriage, but still increase education and its effects on employment status. Compared to labour class rural women and salaried women migrated less, but self-employed women migrate more but in urban areas regular salaried women migrated more. Migration was more among rural women of Central, North-Eastern and Western India. The logistic regression indicated that migration was more among rich and other religion women.