Internal migration as a strategy for dealing with economic shocks: the case of Indonesia

L. Alan Winters

I was recently asked ‘what existing notion or belief do you think we need to shake off in order to foster a more sensible discussion of migration?’ The question was about international migration, but my suggestion was equally applicable to internal migration – migration from one part of a country to another. It was to inculcate the idea that migration is an entirely normal piece of human behaviour. It is not special or abnormal, but since the beginning of time people have moved to make the most of their circumstances. This is not to say that migration is comfortable or even desirable, but that it is – or at least is expected to be – better than the alternative. For all the discomfort of leaving your home and family and often living in very cramped and uncertain circumstances, migrants continue to make the move because it seems to offer better prospects for them and/or their families than staying put. A very rough estimate is that at least 700 million people (over ten percent of the world population) are internal migrants. One can hardly pretend that this is not a major phenomenon or that it should not be the subject of a good deal of research and analysis.

Having recently become Chief Executive Officer of the Migrating Out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium, based in the University of Sussex, I have been thinking quite a lot about internal migration recently. Internal migration is a great deal cheaper than international migration and so is much more accessible to poor people in developing countries. As a result, it tends more immediately to boost the incomes of poor people directly and of their families back home if they remit money (as most do) or return home with new capital, connections and capacities for economic activity.

 

An interesting example of internal migration was the way in which people in Indonesia migrated in response to the Asian financial crisis which devastated the Indonesian economy in 1998. Duncan Thomas (of Duke University) and his colleagues documented the considerable extent of migration during the crisis, much of it from urban to rural areas as the latter suffered less badly than the former. Matteo Sandi, one of my research students in Sussex, and I have been looking at whether this was a successful response to the crisis, especially over the long run (up to 2007). Using data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey, which allows us to observe the same people in 1997, 2000 and 2007 (and often before as well), we asked how the consumption of people who were affected by migration over the crisis grew compared with those who were not. We were able not only to look at the migrants and the households they left, but also at the households they joined as well as cases where the whole household moved.

 

Our preliminary results – which will be written up quite soon – suggest that in the long run, households that lost people experienced faster per capita consumption growth than non-migration affected households in both the short and long runs (from 1997 to 2000 and 2007 respectively). That is, migration seems to have alleviated pressure on family consumption. Households that were net receivers of people suffered reductions in per capita consumption relative to non-migrant ones in the short run but no significant adverse effect in the long run. This suggests that receiving households had to share their resources over more individuals at first, but that over the subsequent seven years they were able to adjust to get back to the ‘average’ trajectory. There is at least some evidence that such receiving households set off in 1997 with higher consumption than the people-exporting households, so this pattern was not necessarily inequitable as some people have suggested. We also look at households which experienced in and out migration of equal magnitude – i.e. which kept the same composition but with (some) different individuals: they showed significant gains in the long run and no significant difference from non-migrant households in the short run. (Although these households experienced both inflows and outflows of migrants over the crisis, we should not necessarily expect their experience to equal the sum of those who were net receivers and net losers of people, so there is no conflict with the results above.)

 

We are yet to unpick the details of how these results came about, but the overall story seems to be that migration helped families cope with a very major income shock in the short run and that in the long run that response had only positive or zero effects on consumption growth. That is, migration helped.

Professor L. Alan Winters is interim CEO of the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium.

Migrants: victims or agents of change?

Priya Deshingkar

How can 66% of Indonesian migrant domestic workers saying that they were able to educate their children and 88% of Indian migrant construction workers’ children being in school be bad news?  This is exactly what is emerging from research conducted by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Consortium in South and Southeast Asia.  It shows how migrants’ own accounts of the motivations, costs and benefits of migration are often at variance with mainstream narratives of slavery and trafficking.  Interviews with migrants and their families tell a much more complex story of hardship and deprivation but also of achievements and tangible improvements in living standards that may not have been possible without migration.  

By all accounts such migration into the lowest jobs has continued unabated or even grown, with urbanisation, a growing middle class and the spread of recruitment agents.  Construction work for example, provides employment for poor and low-skilled migrants all over the world according to Building and Woodworkers International, the global federation of trade unions in the construction industry .  Similarly domestic workers are predominantly but not always female and poor and many are migrants from rural areas according to various studies commissioned by the ILO. 

Both of these occupations have been in the news recently; construction workers because of the slave-like conditions in which they have been employed in the Middle East and domestic work with cases of abuse and exploitation emerging from several countries.  Human rights organisations  and anti-slavery movements have done well to attract attention to these issues but there is a danger that the debate is becoming too polarised; more like a moral discourse with migrants being viewed as “victims” who need to be “rescued” from their employers.  Market intermediaries such as recruitment agents are also suspect because they have a great deal of power over poor and vulnerable workers and can control and exploit them in a number of ways – for example, by confiscating their passports or underpaying them.  The worst cases of exploitation and abuse have become so visible that recruitment agents are now no more than traffickers in the public eye, and migrants, especially if they are poor, young or female, helpless victims. 

The research in South Asia examined the impacts of rural-urban migration for construction work in Nepal, India and Bangladesh through interviews with 150 migrants in the capital cities, and a small number of rural families in source areas.  In India, 98% had saved and remitted part of their incomes even though they lived and worked in extremely inadequate and hazardous conditions. These remittances were critical for the receiving families in improving consumption, upgrading housing, investing in education and assets.  While most migrants felt their living conditions had deteriorated, they felt that migration had opened up more opportunities for employment and higher remuneration which they hoped would support them out of poverty. Interviews with source families in Bihar and West Bengal indicated that 88% of the children from migrant households were in school compared to 77% among non-migrants, more durable assets, better housing and higher levels of expenditure on consumption compared to non-migrants from a similar socio-economic background.

The research in Singapore, based on interviews with 201 Indonesian migrant women working as domestic workers, also highlights the need to understand the process from a broader perspective.  There, despite the precarious and unregulated nature of recruitment and employment processes, with employers and agents exercising a great deal of power over workers, 66 per cent of the migrants in the sample said that remittances had contributed to the education of their children and other uses that have the potential to reduce poverty and improve well-being in the longer term.  However the impacts of such migration on poverty would be significantly faster and greater if the industry could be better regulated.

The results so far indicate that migration presents a number of possibilities for the poor to exit poverty in the longer term through human development and asset building, especially when compared to options available locally. Where setbacks and losses are experienced, this is more to do with the hostile policy environment that leaves migrants with few sources of insurance against risk or the inability to access services that should rightfully be theirs.  There is a need to move beyond the incomplete and biased analysis that views the migration of the poor only through an exploitation lens to one that examines the counterfactual i.e. what they would have done in the absence of such employment.  

 

 

Dr Priya Deshingkar is Research Director of the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium.

Travel Temptations

By Tamara Last

 

In Western Europe, billboards and posters advertising foreign countries are unashamedly trying to tempt you on luxurious holidays to exotic lands filled with sun, sand, culture and adventure. The displays host edited-to-perfection photographs of pristine turquoise oceans, unspoilt forests, snow-capped mountains and savannahs dotted with elephants, zebra and lions. The captions read “Come Visit…”, “Discover…” and “Relax…”. The temptation to travel ignited, you find yourself browsing online through package holidays and weekend city trips, deciding how to treat yourself… after all, you have been working very hard lately and the grey skies and short days are not good for your health.

In West Africa, there are also billboards and posters tempting people to foreign lands. But rather than extravagant tourist ventures, they are planting the suggestion of ‘study abroad’ or a ‘work holiday’. The signs vary hugely both in size and quality (or effort in design), but in general the advertisement is selling the same thing. The temptation on offer is the facilitation of (usually ‘express’) visas and passports, and assistance with travel itineraries, accommodation at destination, and study and work placements, among other things. No lounging women in big sunhats tanning by the pool. No honeymoon couples entranced by exotic birds or cheetah cubs. No white water rafting, bungee jumping, or mountain climbing. The images which tempt people in Africa to travel are those of education, work experience and a better wage.

The difference may simply reflect a different socio-economic reality: Relaxing, pleasure-oriented holidays in exclusive resorts are a luxury that more Western Europeans than West Africans can afford.

Or do the posters reflect different understandings of adventure, of challenges, of pushing ourselves into new environments and situations? A new job or a new step in your education is an exciting but challenging experience in and of itself, even when it isn’t hundreds of miles and several degrees outside your comfort zone.

Of course, advertisements cannot accurately measure individual and household motivations for travel abroad. But they do reveal what the advertisers think is most likely to tempt new clients to travel. It would seem that while Western European advertising companies believe deserted beaches and tropical wildlife will tempt Western Europeans to travel, West African advertising companies feel the temptation lies in work or study opportunities. 

 

Tamara Last undertook an internship at the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana May-July 2013, funded by the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium.