Migration and Technological Change in Rural Households: Complements or Substitutes?

information on duration and destination of migration, moving costs and remittances sent
home by migrants¹⁶.

In the present study we restrict our sample to 3404 rural farm households only¹⁷, among
whom 30 percent have households members who left to work elsewhere. Yet, a crucial point
of our study is to map three different types of migration: national temporary, national
permanent, international permanent migration¹⁸. Moreover, the household, as the unit of
analysis, is defined as the whole family, including migrant members, reflecting the NELM
theoretical approach we adopt, which conceives migration as a family strategy.

Incidences of different forms of migration are summarised in Table 1. Participation to
migration has been identified through questionnaires asking the respondent (the household
head) about whether anybody in the household had migrated and which destination for, along
with some characteristics of migrant members.

In 62 percent of the cases, only one of the household member was a migrant; in 27 percent of
the cases there were two migrants; 9 percent of households had 3 migrants and in the
remaining 1 percent four members migrated. When there is more than one migrant member in
the same household, in the thirty percent of cases they do not belong to the same migration
typology (i.e. migration types are not mutually exclusive in the same household but they are
made so¹⁹).

¹⁶ Migration here, and throughout all the study, refers is to the so-called “free” population movements. Much
migration is that of refugees, asylum seekers and the internally displaced (and they are often amongst the
poorest), but this study does not address these forms of “forced” migration. Hence, the analysis and framework
presented here is within the realm of generalisable variables rather than in circumstances of shock that involve an
exogenous set of causal variables and dynamics.

¹⁷ It should be noted that with more than 50 percent of sample households being small and medium-scale
farmers, small holders are highly represented in our sample (with a higher concentration than at national level;
BBS 1999).

¹⁸ Economic literature has often avoided constructing typologies of migration arguing instead for the need to
capture the overall dynamics of population movements. Yet, this approach may lead to rather simplistic view of
migration flows and their implications at a micro-level. Indeed, domestic and international migrations in
developing countries have been little researched in a simultaneous framework: the two kinds of migration have
generally been treated as different processes. In reality, though, most developing countries experience both, often
involving the same households or even individuals. Mapping out various types of movement can improve our
understanding of the potential virtuous or adverse impacts of migration on poverty and development in local
communities.

¹⁹ This point will be discussed deeper further on (see section 5.1 below).

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