With nearly 30% of its GDP owed to international remittances, and a significant proportion owed to internal remittances, Nepal is already heavily dependent on migration and remittances. If the experience of other disaster-affected countries in Asia (e.g. Indonesia and Sri Lanka after the Tsunami) is anything to go by, migration will probably increase in the aftermath of the recent earthquakes a) because opportunities for local employment will have been badly affected b) because remittances will be needed to rebuild lives and c) because there will be a need for labour in reconstruction. This increase in migration will be both internal and international.
There
is ample evidence to show that remittances are counter-cyclical, peaking after
disasters and providing much needed finance directly to those who need it. We
could see an increase in both national and international remittances flowing
into Nepal in the coming months. There were between 2-4 million Nepalis working
abroad before the earthquake hit and hundreds of thousands circulating between
rural and urban areas working in construction and other low paid jobs.
Newspaper reports suggests that many workers returned home after the earthquake
struck; roughly a million people in Kathmandu returned to their villages and
many of these were circular migrants who were temporarily in the city to
work. There were also reports that
contractors and agents had taken teams of workers back to the rural areas that
they came from. But this will probably be short-lived - it is very likely that
there will be a spurt in people migrating internally for construction work once
the pace of reconstruction picks up.
Migration
for construction work is an important type of rural-urban migration, absorbing
large numbers of poor and poorly educated people from lower social strata in
rural areas. It provides a vital source of income in the agriculturally lean
season and helps to sustain and augment rural incomes. Research conducted under the auspices of the
Migrating out of Poverty Consortium in Kathmandu and two rural locations (a
typical “Hill” village in Kavre district and a “Plains” village in the Terai
plains in Saptari district) shows how important migration for construction work
is for rural livelihoods in Nepal. Interviews at destination with 150 migrant
construction workers revealed that despite insecure and dangerous working
conditions, a majority remitted money to their families which helped them to
improve consumption, educate their children, fund marriages and ceremonies, buy
durables and in a few cases, purchase land and houses. In both villages households with migrants
were better off than those with no migrants. Income and expenditure figures, as
well as land and asset purchase, show that there is a clear correlation between
migration and greater material wealth, as well as more spending on
education. The research also shows how
cultural and gender norms determine whether or not women can migrate and who,
within the family, decides how remittances are used. While Tamang women from
the indigenous communities of the Hill village had no cultural restrictions on
migration, very few women among the Hindu Madhesis in the plains migrated for
work due to cultural norms and stereotypes about women’s work. It was also reported that Tamang women have
more control over how remittances are spent compared with Madhesi women,
although the data were too limited to see any specific outcomes of these
differences.
These findings are useful to inform the current reconstruction and rebuilding effort. It is critically important that government and aid agencies work with migrants rather than against them first and foremost by not obstructing or trying to limit mobility. It also means providing complimentary and supportive services based on a sound understanding of 1) the importance of internal migration and remittances for rural households, especially the poor 2) the gender dynamics of migration and remittance use so that interventions target the right people. While official channels such as banks and money transfer companies are likely to be adversely affected by the disruption to their infrastructure and computers, personal and informal channels assume greater importance. It is important that these mechanisms for transferring money are not penalised and criminalised as is the wont of the paranoid official financial monitoring systems.
For further information contact Priya Deshingkar, University
of Sussex. p.deshingkar@sussex.ac.uk
The full paper by Jagannath Adhikari and Priya Deshingkar (2015) How Migration
into Urban Construction Work Impacts on Rural Households in Nepal. Working
Paper 27, Migrating out of Poverty Consortium, University of Sussex can be accessed here: How Migration into Urban Construction Work Impacts on Rural Households in Nepal
