OUT-MIGRATION AND RURAL LIVELIHOODS IN THE SOUTHERN ECUADORIAN ANDES Clark Langston Gray A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Geography. Chapel Hill 2008 Approved by: Thomas Whitmore Richard Bilsborrow Chirayath Suchindran Stephen Walsh Wendy Wolford ©2008 Clark Langston Gray ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT CLARK GRAY: Out-Migration and Rural Livelihoods in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes (Under the direction of Thomas Whitmore) This work draws on approaches from migration studies and population- environment research to investigate the drivers and consequences of rural out-migration in the southern Ecuadorian Andes, with a focus on connections to agriculture, the environment, and gender. Rural out-migration represents one of the primary forms of human population redistribution over the past century and is an important form of livelihood diversification for many rural households in the developing world. Out- migration commonly occurs in a context of land scarcity or environmental degradation and agricultural production may be further undermined by the loss of household labor to migration, but few quantitative studies have investigated these connections. To address these issues I conducted a household survey in a probability sample of 36 rural communities in southern Loja Province, Ecuador. The survey collected life histories for migrants and non-migrants as well as cross-sectional and retrospective information on household assets and livelihood activities. The household survey was supplemented by a community-level survey and the construction of a geographic information system that provided contextual information. To investigate the effects of agrarian and environmental contexts on out-migration I use these data to estimate a multinomial event history model of out-migration to local, rural, urban and international destinations. The results indicate that access to land iii decreases migration to urban areas but increases migration to rural and international destinations, particularly for men. Also, positive stable characteristics of the environment (e.g., flat topography) and characteristics that indicate environmental variation (e.g., soil erosion) both tend to increase migration. To investigate the consequences of out-migration and remittances for rural livelihoods I estimate a series of tobit and Poisson models of participation in various agricultural activities and changes in assets over time. The results reveal that migration and remittances have countervailing effects on agriculture, with primarily positive effects on market-oriented activities. Together, the findings challenge several prevailing assumptions from the literature on migration, development, and the environment and also highlight the utility of quantitative methods for the investigation of rural livelihoods. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research would not have been possible without the assistance of a number of individuals and institutions. My graduate training has benefited immensely from the guidance of Thomas Whitmore, who has always been available to provide on-target advice and has worked hard to ensure that my research is conceptually well-founded and clearly explained. This research also benefited greatly from the mentorship and the regional and methodological expertise of Richard Bilsborrow. Many thanks also to my other committee members (Chirayath Suchindran, Stephen Walsh, and Wendy Wolford) for providing useful feedback at key junctures, and to the members of the CPC IGERT program, the Ecuador Projects and the Loja fieldwork team for their friendship and support. This research was primarily funded by a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation and a Research Residency grant from the Carolina Population Center. v TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES……………………………………………………………………… vii LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………. viii Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….. 1 1.1 Aims of the Dissertation ………………………………………… 1 1.2 The Livelihoods Framework …………………………………….. 3 2. STUDY AREA AND DATA COLLECTION……………………….….. 9 2.1 Study Area and Context………………………………………….. 9 2.2 Fieldwork and Data Collection…………………………………. 25 3. DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSES…………………………………..…….… 35 3.1 Dataset Construction…………………………….……………… 35 3.2 Migration ………………….......................................................... 37 3.3 Agriculture and Rural Livelihoods………………………….….. 48 4. ENVIRONMENT, LAND AND RURAL OUT-MIGRATION.…….… 54 4.1 Significance……………………………………….…………….. 54 4.2 Environmental Influences on Out-Migration …………………... 55 4.3 Analysis of Migration………………………….……………….. 62 4.4 Results for Migration…………………………………………… 73 4.5 Results for Migration and Gender………………………………. 85 4.6 Discussion………………………………………….…...…….… 94 vi 5. OUT-MIGRATION AND SMALLHOLDER AGRICULTURE...….… 98 5.1 Significance……………………………………….…………….. 98 5.2 Impacts of Out-Migration on Rural Livelihoods ……………... 100 5.3 Analysis of Assets………………………….………………….. 106 5.4 Results for Assets ……………………………………………... 117 5.5 Analysis of Agricultural Activities………………………….… 124 5.6 Results for Agricultural Activities ……………………………. 132 5.7 Discussion ………………………………………….…...…….. 140 6. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………... 143 APPENDIX 1 HOUSEHOLD QUESTIONNAIRE………………….……….. 156 APPENDIX 2 COMMUNITY QUESTIONNAIRE…………………...………168 REFERENCES……………………………………………………….…..…… 177 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Characteristics of the population of Ecuador, the rural highlands and the study area……………………………………14 2.2 Characteristics of farms in the five study cantons and Ecuador overall from the 2000 agricultural census……………………...14 3.1 Top ten destinations of departing individuals by sex, 1995-2006……….37 3.2 Migration by destination type and year of departure…………………… 38 3.3 Migration status by age, 1996-2006…………………………………….. 39 3.4 Migration status by sex and relation to household head, 1995-2006…… 39 3.5 Migration by destination, sex, and co-occurrence with marriage, 1996-2006………………………………………………. 40 3.6 Primary activity by location of current residence, 2006………………... 41 3.7 Mean household age composition by age of the male household head, 2006…………………………………………. 42 3.8 Participation rates in farm and wage labor by sex, 2005……………….. 43 3.9 Mean annual migrant remittances sent by current migrant residence and sex of the migrant, 2006………………………... 43 3.10 Mean annual migrant remittances received by remittance status of the household, 2006……………………………….. 44 3.11 Mean values for characteristics of non-migrant-sending, migrant-sending, and whole departing households……………………... 47 3.12 Mean values for characteristics of agricultural parcels by tenancy………………………………………………………. 49 3.13 Mean values for farm characteristics by farm size, 2006………………. 50 3.14 Participation rates and mean cash income by income source and farm size, 2006……………………………………………… 52 viii 4.1 Definitions and weighted mean person-year values for the migration predictors…………………………………………….. 66 4.2 Hypotheses for the effects of land area and environmental conditions on local, rural, urban and international migration under the environmental amenity/risk hypotheses and the environmental capital hypothesis……………………………………….. 70 4.3 Odds ratios from the event history analysis of local, rural, urban and international migration………………………………………. 74 4.4 Odds ratios by gender and tests for the significance of interactions of the predictors with gender from the event history analysis of local, rural, urban and international migration……... 86 5.1 Definitions, sample sizes and weighted descriptive statistics for the outcomes from the analysis of assets………………….107 5.2 Definitions and weighted descriptive statistics for the predictors from the analysis of assets…………………………………. 111 5.3 Results from the regression analysis of assets………………………….118 5.4 Marginal effects of selected predictors from the tobit models of land rental and cattle ownership……………………………. 120 5.5 Definitions, sample sizes and weighted descriptive statistics for the outcomes from the analysis of agricultural activities………….. 125 5.6 Definitions and weighted descriptive statistics for the predictors from the analysis of agricultural activities…………………. 130 5.7 Results from the regression analysis of agricultural activities………… 133 5.8 Marginal effects of selected predictors from the tobit models of agricultural activities……………………………………….. 134 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Conceptual framework for analysis of migration-livelihood interactions................................................................ 8 2.1 Map of Ecuador with provinces, major cities and the study area............. 10 2.2 Map of the study area with study communities, topography and other features................................................................... 11 2.3 The town of Amaluza in Espindola canton during the wet season........... 12 2.4 The community of Chantaco in Calvas canton during the wet season..... 13 2.5 View towards the northwest corner of Calvas canton during the wet season................................................................................ 16 2.6 A rural community in central Calvas canton during the dry season......... 17 2.7 The community of Tabloncillo in Calvas canton during the wet season.. 18 2.8 Map of Ecuador showing the destinations of internal migrants from the study area during the period 1996-2001..................................... 20 2.9 Map of Ecuador showing canton-level