Multi-local Living and New Rural Household Structures. An Insight from Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

This paper explores the implication of multi-local living practice on rural household structure, focusing on rural Sarawak, Malaysia. Increasing number of rural dwellers, especially the younger and more educated members, are opting for multi-local living to pursue better standard of living. Multi-local living refers to a practice where members of a household are spatially separately, either temporarily or permanently, while at the same time, remain as member of their household. The nature of the subject suits the Sociology of Everyday Life approach that is used to frame this study. Findings are based on the interviews of 82 head of households from 20 villages in rural Sarawak. Data was collected using qualitative methods, mainly in-depth interviews and focus group discussions and a set of database containing profiles of the members of each sampled households were obtained. Findings indicated that multi-local living has been widely practiced by the Iban community in rural Sarawak for decades. This practice changes the traditional structure of Iban rural households (known as bilik-family) and three new forms of household structure had emerged. They are: a small bilik-family unit, a contemporary bilik-family unit, and a large extended contemporary bilik-family unit. It is also found that the bilik-family is getting larger but the number of members actually living in the village home is quite small. This situation arises because most of the household members are spread out geographically, and yet, despite the distance and their almost semi-permanent urban resident status, they remain as acknowledged members of their respective bilik-family.