Masculinities, Remittances and Failure

Central Department of Economics, 2011

Research Papers in Economics, 2019

Male outmigration is rapidly increasing in Nepal, leading the amount of remittance inflows to exceed 20% of GDP in 2011. This article examines the impact of male outmigration on women's empowerment, which is relatively undocumented in the literature. We employ rainfall and an ethnicity-specific migration network as our instruments to address endogeneity in male outmigration. Our empirical evidence shows that married women in households with male outmigrants are less likely to be in polygamous relationships and are more likely to have the final say on their own health issues. However, further investigation demonstrates that these women are less likely to have freedom to visit their family or relatives, which is probably due to increased cohabitation with their parents-in-law.

Since 1990s, the participation of independent Nepali female migrants in the global labor market has transformed the traditional migration trends in Nepal. From 2002 to 2007, the government of Nepal promoted female labor migration to alleviate poverty in the country. Subsequently, the participation of independent Nepali women in international labor migration became popular. The Middle Eastern countries (Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Lebanon, Israel, etc.) and South-East Asian countries such as Malaysia remain the top destination for Nepali female labor migrants. Many Nepali women seek opportunities in domestic labor abroad such as domestic workers, housekeepers, and caretakers. The increasing trend of independent female labor migrants seeking employment abroad follows the global trend of “Feminization of Labor Migration”. The feminization of labor migration is a discursive subject that deals with political and social structures of a society, such as legal policies and hierarchical social values that perpetuate gender inequality in both working countries and the global labor market. It is necessary to focus on the role of gender in migration discourse in order to address the difference in experience of women to that of men before, during and after the process of migration. This Senior Thesis acknowledges migration in terms of gender perspective to explore the impact of women’s migration in reconstructing the hegemonic structure in their societies and in transforming the gender roles of women in their families. This qualitative research is based on three methods: in-depth individual interviews, focus group, and discourse analysis. This paper addresses Nepali migrant women’s agency in participating in feminization of labor migration and their roles in reconstructing the gender relations within their families and lives of those who are left behind after migration.

ACCB Publishing, 2018

Male out-migration from rural to urban areas has amplified worldwide in the face of economic globalisation. Migration literature for long has engaged with the life of migrants at the destination and their support for the left-behind families in the form of remittances. Explicit scholastic undertaking for the left-behind women and their life experiences has started to receive attention only recently. We take stock of the existing literature to examine this social process and debate it within a women empowerment-disempowerment framework. Following a systematic review of the ‘migration left-behind nexus’ literature, we find a clear trend of transformation in the gender role of women everywhere, especially in the form of ‘feminisation of agriculture’. This process is largely moderated by the nature and amount of remittances received at source. The resultant well-being and empowerment of women is shaped by the socio-cultural context within which migration takes place. Both positive and/or negative outcomes for left-behind women are recorded in the literature, although its choice as a conscious decision and its subsequent permanence in a society is debatable. We expect a deeper engagement of future research that takes up the migration-led women empowerment issue within the context of the general social transformation process.

ERN: Other Macroeconomics: Employment, 2020

Women’s empowerment is dynamic across the life course, affected not only by age but also by women’s social position within the household. In Nepal, high rates of male outmigration have further compounded household dynamics, although the impact on women’s empowerment is not clear. We use qualitative and quantitative data from Nepal to explore the relationship between women’s social location in the household, caste/ethnicity, husband’s migration status, and women’s empowerment. The study first examines the factors affecting overall empowerment as measured by the Abbreviated Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (A-WEAI), followed by more detailed qualitative and quantitative analysis of how each factor affects individual domains including asset ownership, access to and decisions on credit, control over use of income, group membership, input in productive decisions, and work load. We find that women’s empowerment is strongly associated with caste/ethnic identity and position in the ...

2010

In Nepal, male out-migration is an important factor to contribute to GDP through regular remittances. This paper looks at the effects of male out-migration on the women left behind in relation to labour participation and decision-making in agriculture. The literature speaks of feminisation of agriculture as a positive development for women's empowerment. A distinction is made between labour feminisation and managerial feminisation. As the two concepts indeed refer to two different roles, power positions and managerial practices, the paper separately explores these practices and actors involved. Data were collected for a doctoral study in Jhapa District, Eastern Nepal; a lowland area from where much male out-migration is taking place. The study shows a higher level of feminisation in a situation where de-facto autonomous female heads-of-household are decision makers and less in case of women who stay within the patrilineal household of their parents-in-law. Moreover, feminisation in the first case has the unexpected outcome that women seem to be moving away from agriculture. An interdisciplinary approach using anthropological in-depth interviews and demographic survey data shows that a concept like feminisation of agriculture needs to be considered and understood in the wider social and cultural context of an expanding rural space.

Journal of South Asian Studies, Escience Press , 2022

In recent times, South Asia has emerged as the highest emigrant sending region to the Gulf. According to the United Nations Population Division (2017) 20.3 million stocks of migrants is in the Gulf countries, among the total number of South Asian migrants were 13millions which accounted for 63.9 percent of the total number of stock of migrants in the Persian Gulf. Due to this huge outpouring of workers, the region has also emerged as the largest receiver of remittances. It is interesting to note that these South Asian migrants are generally from the strata of societies where patriarchal structures are still in their rigidities as modernity has not yet penetrated there to change the feudal mentality, especially towards assigning women's role in society. Patriarchy defines a limited socioeconomic role for women. They undergo inflexible social processes and remain disadvantaged often affecting their rights, social status, mobility, autonomy, and decision-making capabilities. The physical absence of their husbands, the heads of the home, and the influx of remittance have positively impacted the lives of these women as they are now able to renegotiate their social roles and responsibilities. The process has helped to loosen the rigidities of the patriarchal structure. The objective of the research is to find out how the truancy of men has transformed and emancipated/empowered women in home countries. This study examines the literature on the socioeconomic impact of male migration, and how it affects women's mobility and empowerment in left-behind families. This qualitative research evaluates women's empowerment through one independent variable i.e., husband's emigration, and three dependent variables, women's decision-making power, mobility, and autonomy in the absence of their husbands within the framework of gender empowerment. For the convenience of this research, 50 samples of Gulf emigrants' families living in the Gopalgunj district of Bihar, India have been selected (Data is collected from the field through informal and conversational interviews, questionnaires, and convenience sampling is used). This research argues that a significant social transformation in gender roles has occurred due to husbands' migration.

2016

Taking up better paying jobs in a foreign country is much more rewarding compared to many professions in Nepal. It is evident from the movement of more than half a million Nepalis for employment beyond India in the last fiscal year 2014/15. Nepal is among the top countries receiving the largest share of remittances in the world. Policy framework and specialized institutional mechanism are in place to govern the foreign labourS migration sector in Nepal.

The article analyses the relation between social remittances and migrant families through the perspective of migrant elites' politics of identity in sending contexts. It argues for the importance of looking historically at how competing engagements with migration have led people to morally evaluate the suitability of remittances for kinship well-being. Migrant elites' conceptions of remittances are underpinned by a double meaning associated with 'foreign money', which is in turn highly influenced by local perceptions of different migrant destinations. On the one hand, money (as other goods) symbolizes loyalty towards the family and the community. On the other, money becomes the visible manifestation of distance between kin, and is locally judged insofar as it is not able to replace the lack of family care and affection. In the process, remittances emerge not only as a medium of family care, but also a social phenomenon through which the morality and possibility of kinship solidarity is questioned, if not invalidated.