2. Understanding migration: development-strategy or poverty-trap?
Migration is a global social phenomenon and, whatever the perspective taken on this issue, it
is an ongoing process that surrounds and pervades all aspects of contemporary society. The
world’s great migrations out of rural areas are accelerating, making internal and international
migration one of the most pervasive features of agricultural transformations and economic
development both in developed and less-developed countries.
Yet, the economic literature on migration provides different explanations of the reasons why
people move and offers few insights into the role migration plays in fostering (or hindering)
economic development in sending communities4.
Drawing on the seminal work of Stark (1978), the NELM theory has explained migration as
an inter-temporal household strategy entailing interrelationships between determinants and
impacts for the migrant and for the whole household left behind (Stark, 1991). Following this
perspective, a wide array of contributions have emphasised the existence of complex
motivations behind migration, such as risk-management strategy, alleviation of credit
constrains and diversification of income portfolios5. This is opposed to the “expected income
hypothesis” of Harris-Todaro (1970) that explains migration as an individual one-off
adjustment to inter-sectorial wages differentials.
The perception of migration in the latter theory is focused on migrant individual decision
motivated by imperfections in labour markets. The NELM perspective, on the other hand, has
widened the way of thinking about migration in that it explains family motivations to send out
a migrant arising from imperfections not necessarily in labour markets but rather in markets
for credit and risk. However, “while constituting a motivation for migration, imperfections in
capital and insurance markets may also constrain migration, resulting in the seeming paradox
that increases in rural incomes (which enable households to self-finance migration costs and
self-insure against migration risks) may promote, rather than impede, migration” (Taylor J.E.
and Martin, P., 2001).
Following the existing literature on migration, there are three competing channels through
which this process can affect household members left behind: namely, decreased domestic
availability of family labour; increased cash-inflows (remittances); diversification of
4 See Williamson (1998), Taylor and Martin (2001) for a review of theoretical foundations and empirical
evidence on migration issue.
5 Daveri and Faini (1998) formalise the argument that migration is a household decision driven by risk
motivations. Using aggregate data, they also provide some evidence on the importance of risk in shaping
domestic and international emigration behaviour in Southern Italian regions. The micro-economic literature on
this issue also includes Katz, E. and Stark, O. 1986; Lucas and Stark, 1985,88; Rosenzweig M., 1988;
Rosenzweig and Stark, 1989; Lucas, R.E.B., 1997.