Labour migration and investments by remaining households in rural Nepal

Existing studies on the development effects of labour migration and remittances provide conflicting evidence and many suffer from self-selection bias. Furthermore, in spite of the significance of labour migration to the Nepalese economy, there are very few studies that formally analyse the development effect of labour migration in this region. Consequently, propensity score matching and a ‘difference-in-difference’ method is used to estimate the effect of labour migration and expectations to receive remittances from these migrants on investments by the remaining households in Chitwan, Nepal. The results suggest a positive role of labour migration and their likelihood of sending remittances on investments in agriculture, a type of productive investment.     

Processes of Internal and International Migration from Chitwan, Nepal

In this study we examine which factors predict internal and international migration from Chitwan, a flat valley located in the South-Central region of Nepal, seeking to measure the effect of theoretically specified variables such as human capital, social capital, physical capital, and neighborhood socioeconomic conditions while controlling for demographic variables. We use data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) to estimate a series of discrete time event history models of first and repeat migration to three competing destinations: other locations within Chitwan, other districts within Nepal, and places outside of Nepal. Results support hypotheses derived from neoclassical economics, the theory of new economics of migration, social capital theory, and cumulative causation theory. Our results underscore the need for a synthetic theoretical model that incorporates factors operating at the individual, household, and community levels. The use of multiple explanatory models yields a clearer picture of the forces driving internal and international migration from rural districts in developing nations such as Nepal.     

Individual Decisions to Migrate During Civil Conflict

The existing literature on forced migration limits our understanding of how violence affects migration to competing destinations. This article adds to the literature on forced migration by studying how armed violence during a period of civil conflict in south-central Nepal influenced the likelihood of local, internal, and international migration. We find that violence has a nonlinear effect on migration, such that low to moderate levels of violence reduce the odds of movement, but when violence reaches high levels, the odds of movement increase. We also find that the effect of violence on mobility increases as the distance of the move increases. When we consider the influence of violence on microlevel decision-making, we find that the effects of individual and household-level determinants were mostly consistent with hypotheses derived from contemporary theories of voluntary migration and that no predictor of migration influenced the decision to migrate differently in the presence of violence.     

Climate variability and migration in the Philippines

This study investigates the effects of climatic variations and extremes captured by variability in temperature, precipitation, and incidents of typhoons on aggregate inter-provincial migration within the Philippines using panel data. Our results indicate that a rise in temperature and to some extent increased typhoon activity increase outmigration, while precipitation does not have a consistent, significant effect. We also find that temperature and typhoons have significant negative effects on rice yields, a proxy for agricultural productivity, and generate more outmigration from provinces that are more agriculturally dependent and have a larger share of rural population. Finally, migration decisions of males, younger individuals, and those with higher levels of education are more sensitive to rising temperature and typhoons. We conclude that temperature increase and to some extent typhoon activities promote migration, potentially through their negative effect on crop yields. The migration responses of males, more educated, and younger individuals are more sensitive to these climatic impacts.