Migration as a driver of changing household structures: implications for local livelihoods and adaptation

Chandni Singh

doi:10.1080/21632324.2019.1589073

Abstract

ABSTRACTRapid environmental change, increasing climate variability, land fragmentation, and underlying institutional lacunae have shaped rural livelihoods in India. Increasingly, rural-urban migration has been a significant livelihood strategy to manage risks, meet aspirations, and move out of increasingly unprofitable agriculture. I argue that this movement of people is changing shape household structures, and the metrics to assess these transitions, often through categories of male- and female-headed households, fall short in understanding the experiences and outcomes of migration. Using a household survey (n = 825) and life history interviews (n = 16) to study rural-urban migration in South India, I demonstrate that shifting household configurations due to migration and commuting have implications for the risk management strategies people undertake. This calls for an expanded understanding of the ‘household’, which captures the realities of multi-local households, and consequently, for an expanded conceptualisation of ‘local adaptation’. Such an understanding is sensitive to the ‘beyond-local’ flows and networks that shape household risk management behaviour and has implications for improving the effectiveness of climate change adaptation interventions.

Highlights

Rural to urban migration is a key livelihood strategy in rapidly developing, low-income contexts
The paper ends with a discussion on what these findings indicate for methodologies to study and characterise migration trajectories, and implications of changing household structures on adaptation practice
Caste critically intersected with gender to mediate migration patterns: of the total women migrating (n = 151), 56% belonged to Scheduled Caste categories

Summary

Introduction

Rural to urban migration is a key livelihood strategy in rapidly developing, low-income contexts. It is often identified as a significant approach to strengthen rural livelihoods and adapt to climatic risks (Adger et al, 2015; Warner & Afifi, 2014). The ways in which migration shapes and is shaped by household structures, and how these dynamics in household composition affect people’s adaptive capacity and broader adaptation processes in rural and urban areas is poorly studied. This paper attempts to fill this gap using empirical evidence from two districts in South India. Migration as a key livelihood strategy in dryland India. Livelihood vulnerability in India’s drylands is shaped byseveral interacting social, economic, political, and environmental changes.

Methods

Results

Conclusion