Arjan de Haan

Livelihoods and poverty: The role of migration ‐ a critical review of the migration literature

This review of the literature concludes that development studies have paid insufficient attention to labour migration, and makes a plea to integrate analyses of migration within those of agricultural and rural development. It emphasises that population mobility is much more common than is often assumed, and that this has been so throughout human history. In fact, available material suggests that it is as likely that population mobility has decreased as that it has increased. A review of empirical studies shows that it may not be possible to generalise about the characteristics of migrants, or about the effects of migration on broader development, inequality or poverty. The review concludes that, given the importance of migration for the rural livelihoods of many people, policies should be supportive of population mobility, and possibilities should be explored to enhance the positive effects of migration.

Introduction: Migrant Workers and Their Role in Rural Change

This introductory essay and collection concern the social processes within which migration for manual work is located and which are influenced by that same migration. Writing from detailed empirical studies of migration in South and South-east Asia and Africa, the contributors provide illustrations of the importance and normality of migration in rural life. The studies show that the relationship between migration and rural change is complex and context-specific. Migration has often increased inequality, but in many cases also supported vulnerable livelihoods. Much depends on the social processes at work, the ways in which identities shift through migration and how gendered ideologies of work are deployed and change. Labour mobility usually serves the interests of capital, not only in ensuring labour supply, but also, often, in dividing workers; however, the power of capital relative to labour is contingent. We conclude this essay by exploring ways in which public policies can support migrants by making migration less costly and more secure, by reducing discrimination and enhancing access to health care and other services.

Migration and Livelihoods in Historical Perspective: A Case Study of Bihar, India

Whereas other contributions in this volume focus on contemporary migration, this article explores the role migration has played over a long period of time, in western Bihar, India. By doing so, it reinforces one of the central themes in this volume, regarding the importance of migration for livelihoods: this case study challenges the assumption that migration would be a recent phenomenon, and argues that to understand the history of this area one needs to take account of the complex interaction between migration and development. Migration has been a livelihood strategy for many groups within the area, and the study explores how migration has been caused by and in turn influences poverty and livelihoods for men and women, and how these relationships have changed over time.Whereas other contributions in this volume focus on contemporary migration, this article explores the role migration has played over a long period of time, in western Bihar, India. By doing so, it reinforces one of the central themes in this volume, regarding the importance of migration for livelihoods: this case study challenges the assumption that migration would be a recent phenomenon, and argues that to understand the history of this area one needs to take account of the complex interaction between migration and development. Migration has been a livelihood strategy for many groups within the area, and the study explores how migration has been caused by and in turn influences poverty and livelihoods for men and women, and how these relationships have changed over time.

Migration as family strategy: Rural-urban labor migration in India during the twentieth century

The article analyzes the role of families in processes of rural-urban migration in India in the twentieth century. It shows that the continuous circular form of this migration should be explained as a consequence of rural family strategies. Already established kinship relations or marriage opportunities in the future act as a centripetal force, drawing the labor migrants back to their communities time and again. In addition, the article shows how labor migration is informed by economic and cultural considerations which determine the socioeconomic behavior of men and women.

Eastward Ho! Leapfrogging and Seasonal Migration in Eastern India

This paper focuses on two contrasting settings within this stream: rice cultivation in a Green Revolution area in West Bengal, and industrial production in Calcutta. The comparison reveals a surprising picture: while agriculture draws much of its labour force from relatively less productive adjacent districts, this movement is leapfrogged by the industrial labour force. Clearly these parallel movements could not have been predicted by conventional models of migration and economic development. In his model of rural-urban migration, Todaro assumed that migrants acted individually according to a rationality of economic self interest. Rather than simply moving to cities because of a simple wage difference, however, the decision to migrate took into account the expected probability of employment at the destination. Implicitly a personal cost benefit analysis took place in the prospective migrant’s mind, weighing up the difference between the present value of expected earnings from formal sector urban employment (and an initial period of informal sector employment) and the present value of expected earnings in the village (Todaro, 1969; Harriss and Todaro, 1970). Later modifications have not changed the fundamental individual maximising assumption of the original model (Todaro, 1976;

Migration in eastern India: A segmented labour market

* This paper was presented at the conference on ’Migration and Settlement in a Historical Perspective: Old Answers and New Perspectives’, in Leiden and Amsterdam, September 1993. I would like to thank the participants of this conference and Professor Dharma Kumar for their comments, and Janet Marks for correcting my English. Carrying out the fieldwork would have been impossible without the assistance of Gautam Sanyal. The research has been financed by the Erasmus University Rotterdam and NWO, the Dutch foundation for scientific

Book Reviews : The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India. Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900-1940 by Rajnarayan Chandavarkar. Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. 468

formation ’was influenced by and as it shaped the nature and development of industrial capitalism in colonial India’ (p. 1). It seeks to fill a gap in the historiography of labour, in which the workers themselves have until now remained silent. But it is a political rather than a cultural social history: through a study of the social formation of Bombay’s workers, Chandavarkar attempts to decipher their political perceptions and political actions. The second chapter sets out the familiar characteristics of Bombay, its transformation from a fishing hamlet into a major industrial metropolis. It describes the social geography of the city, the growth of capitalism in the region, the role of the colonial state in the expansion of Bombay, and the influence of the plague. The development of the cotton textile industry was a response to the subordination of indigenous capital, and ’not a function of its linear progress from trade to industry’ (p. 65). Economic development was uneven, most trades were liable to seasonal and arbitrary fluctuations, and capital was mobilised in small pools. Business strategies were based on rapid turnover, and this was associated with rapidly changing levels of employment. Fluctuations in the labour market played an important role in the formation of the working class, according to Chandavarkar. They heightened the importance of caste and kinship ties, the workers’ village connections, and the social organisation of the urban neighbourhoods. Chapter 3 discusses Bombay’s labour market, stressing the widespread