• Introduction

Introduction to livelihoods and migration

This paper reviews the literature on households and communities that use migration as a means to diversify household activities, to improve capacity and flexibility to respond to external shocks, and simply to reduce the number of people the household must sustain. This study examines livelihood approaches to analyse and understand how labour migration affects well-being outcomes of poor people.

Findings on the livelihood outcomes of migration by poor people in relation to inequality, vulnerability, remittances, social networks and identity, education and health include:

• inequality: whether the poor benefit from migration as much as or more than the rich or less poor depends on their means (assets and resources) and strategies (networks, planning) as well as relations of power and inequality
• some migration streams can result in widening income gaps in the sending areas and changes in the nature of inequality itself
• migration can reduce inequality, especially where a livelihood strategy becomes accumulative over time, with benefits accruing to present and future generations
• vulnerability: the degree of vulnerability may influence the form migration takes, with more vulnerable households migrating all together, or with some staying back to look after land or animals
• through remittances, migration can reduce the vulnerability of both household and migrant, by promoting co-insurance. Customary law, and social customs, for example those relating to marriage, affect these patterns of co-insurance and remittance behaviour
• remittances: remittances can have an indirect effect on the poor – through the creation of jobs and work in sending areas
• a distinction may be made between situations where remittances contribute to a livelihood strategy that is coping as opposed to accumulative
• not all of remittance expenditure will have a macro economic development effect although they have symbolic value
• social identity and network: social identity such as caste or kin may mobilise a network that can enable migration to take place and can affect the outcome of the migration
• education and health: one of the benefits of migration may be that the migrant gains education or a skill, indeed this may be a central purpose
• a clear need is identified for health services to be more flexible and culturally aware and sensitive to difference – in order that migrants do not simply avoid using hospitals

[Adapted from author]

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