Temporary Rural-rural Migration, Vulnerability of Migrants at the Destination and Its Outcomes on Migrant Households: Evidence from Temporary Migrant Sending Households in Quarit District, Northwestern Ethiopia
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Date
2018-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
In many developing countries, temporary rural-rural labor migration is a widely practiced livelihood diversification strategy of households, but poorly recognized in migration literature and policy making. Based on data from migrant and non-migrant sending households in Quarit district, Nortwestern Ethiopia, this study examines the patterns and determinants of migration, and the outcomes of migrants’ vulnerability at the place of destination on migrant sending households. It is informed by ideas from sustainable livelihoods approach, translocal vulnerability approach and double exposure framework. Data were gathered mainly through household survey, focus group discussions, key informant interviews and collection of secondary sources. For the survey, 398 households were selected via stratified random sampling technique. Chi-square test, one-way ANOVA, and binary and multinomial logstic regressions were used for quantitative data analyses. Qualitative data analyses were employed to supplement quantitative data analyses. The results show that there are three types of migration in terms of the livelihood activities in which migrants engage at the place of destination: casual wage labor, full-time wage labor and crop farming migration. It is found that temporary rural-rural labor migration is a decision of households with poor access to key livelihood assets such as land, livestock and access to irrigable water. However, types of migration disaggregated analysis show that households that are poor in land and livestock ownership migrate more for casual wage and full-time wage labor than crop farming. This implies that temporary rural-rural labor migration is not a homogeneous activity taken by the poorest of the poor. Although migration supports the livelihoods of migrant sending households, livelihood activities at the place of destination are subjected to multiple and interacting shocks related to crop failure, market, health, employment and crime shocks. The exposure of migrants to these shocks is a function of networked socio-economic, environmental and institutional factors at different scales that converge at the place of destination. Migrants use different ex-ante and ex-post risk management strategies where there are possibilities of enhancing their vulnerability. Different forms of migrants’ vulnerability have some similarity and difference. The study also shows that the vulnerability of migrants at the place of destination has detrimental outcomes on migrant sending households. This makes the vulnerability of migrant sending households embedded in the vulnerability contexts at the place of destination. The findings convey a message that the vulnerability of households cannot be fully captured in a localized livelihood approach alone. This, in turn, indicates that vulnerability analysis needs to take translocal approach as a central lens of analysis. Finally, the translocal nature of vulnerability suggests that the reduction of migration related vulnerability requires mainstreaming migration within development policies and strategies that are designed in a spatially integrated platform.