Working Paper 220 Seasonal Migration for Livelihoods in India: Coping, Accumulation and Exclusion Priya Deshingkar and Daniel Start August 2003 Overseas Development Institute 111 Westminster Bridge Road London SE1 7JD UK Priya Deshingkar is an ODI Research Associate and the Andhra Pradesh Research Director for the Livelihood Options Project. Email: [email protected] Daniel Start is a Research Associate (formerly Research Officer) of the Overseas Development Institute, and directed the Madhya Pradesh component of the Livelihood Options study from 2000– 2002. Email: [email protected] or [email protected] This paper was prepared as part of the ODI Livelihood Options study with funding from DFID. The views expressed here are those of the authors alone ISBN 0 85003 670 4 © Overseas Development Institute 2003 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers. ii Contents Acronyms and Abbreviations v Glossary of Terms v Glossary of Castes v Summary vi 1 Introduction 1 2 Part I: Definitions and Theories of Migration 2 2.1 Some definitions 2 2.2 Theories of migration 3 3 Part II: Broad Patterns of Migration in MP and AP 6 3.1 The magnitude of migration 6 3.2 The returns from migration 7 3.2.1 Income from farm and non-farm work inside and outside the village 7 3.2.2 The returns from agricultural labouring work inside and outside the village 9 3.3 Who migrates and why 11 3.3.1 Do those with land, livestock and agricultural assets stay at home? 12 3.3.2 The poorest rarely migrate 13 3.3.3 Labour-scarce households do not migrate 13 3.3.4 Higher migration among the Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes 13 3.3.5 Gender 15 4 Part III: Accumulative and Coping Migration Streams 17 4.1 Accumulative migration 23 4.1.1 Sugarcane cutters from Medak district, Andhra Pradesh 23 4.1.2 Havelli workers from Mandla, Madhya Pradesh 24 4.1.3 Earthworkers from Chittoor district, Andhra Pradesh 25 4.2 Migration as a coping strategy 26 4.2.1 Construction workers from Mandla, Madhya Pradesh 26 4.2.2 Construction workers from Medak district, Andhra Pradesh 26 4.2.3 Agricultural labourers from coastal villages in Andhra Pradesh 27 4.3 Main findings 28 5 Part IV: Recognising and Supporting Migration as a Livelihood Strategy 29 References 30 iii List of Tables Table 1 Incidence of migration in AP and MP sample villages 6 Table 2 Average returns per household per annum in AP (Rs) 8 Table 3 Average returns per household per annum in MP (Rs) 8 Table 4 Agricultural labour income inside and outside the village in AP (Rs) 9 Table 5 Agricultural labour income inside and outside the village in MP (Rs) 10 Table 6 Agricultural labour income inside and outside the village by land category in AP (Rs) 10 Table 7 Agricultural labour income inside and outside the village by land category in MP (Rs) 11 Table 8 Factors correlated with migration: regression analysis results for AP 12 Table 9 Factors correlated with migration: regression analysis results for MP 12 Table 10 Migration rates by caste in AP and MP villages 14 Table 11 Gender profile of migrating households in AP 16 Table 12 Age and gender of migrants working in farm and non-farm work in AP 16 Table 13 Who in the family migrates in MP 16 Table 14 Coping and accumulative migration streams in MP and AP villages 19 Table 15 Percentages of households as a proportion of landed households in KA and KO villages, AP 28 iv Acronyms and Abbreviations AP Andhra Pradesh BC Backward Caste FC Forward Caste MP Madhya Pradesh NCRL National Commission on Rural Labour NELM New Economics of Labour Migration NGO Non Governmental Organisation O(B)C Other (Backward) Caste PDS Public Distribution System SC Scheduled Caste ST Scheduled Tribe UNICEF United Nations Children's Fund Glossary of Terms Adda A point where casual labourers gather to meet prospective employers Gunta A local measure of volume – 12’ x 12’ x 1’6’ Kharif Monsoon crop growing season Mestri Contractor Rabi Winter crop growing season Glossary of Castes Ahirwar Scheduled Caste Baiga Scheduled Tribe Balai Scheduled Caste Brahmin Forward Caste Chamar Scheduled Caste Dhimar Other Backward Caste Ghond Scheduled Tribe Gowda Backward Caste Kamma Forward Caste Kapu Other Backward Caste Kshatriya Forward Caste Lambada Scheduled Tribe Lodhi Other Backward Caste Madiga Scheduled Caste Mala Scheduled Caste Mudiraj Backward Caste Panka Scheduled Caste Patidar Forward Caste Pradhan Scheduled Caste Reddy Forward Caste Sahu Other Backward Caste Thakur Other Backward Caste Vaddi/Vaddera Backward Caste Yadava Backward Caste v Summary Seasonal and circular migration of labour for employment has become one of the most durable components of the livelihood strategies of people living in rural areas. Migration is not just by the very poor during times of crisis for survival and coping but has increasingly become an accumulative option for the poor and non-poor alike. This paper shows why some groups of people have succeeded in entering accumulative migration pathways while others have been excluded. A social exclusion and livelihoods approach that moves beyond neo-classical economics and structuralist theories is adopted. This helps us to understand that migration patterns are determined by people’s access to resources, the (institutional, market, policy) environment, intra-household relations, wider social relations, and not just the productivity and demand for labour in an area. In Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP), important factors have been the historical development of different regions, interlocked markets for credit, output and labour, marketable traditional skills, other livelihood options that are complementary to migration, the availability of surplus labour within the household, cultural norms regarding the sexual division of labour, as well as decisions related to children’s education. Caste emerges as an important determinant of who is excluded from positive migration streams.1 This is because of the strong correlation between belonging to a Scheduled Caste and being poor, illiterate and assetless as well as being discriminated against by employers and contractors. Contrary to received wisdom, the cases presented here show that people from poor areas can be on positive migration pathways and people from well-endowed areas can be on coping migration pathways. Indeed, one person’s coping strategy is often another person’s accumulation strategy. Thus we find that migrant sugarcane cutters, earthworkers and agricultural labourers from remote and poor villages of AP and MP have improved their standard of living significantly and are investing their savings in agriculture and educating their children. On the other hand, some migrants from the prosperous canal-irrigated coastal areas migrate for coping purposes. And what of social policy? Although millions of poor labourers are in circulation for the best part of the year, policy continues to be ill-equipped to deal with this phenomenon, with the result that, outside their home areas, migrants have no entitlements to livelihood support systems or formal welfare schemes. Neither are they paid a full wage, because contractors deduct a part of that too. The additional burden posed by a lack of access to basic facilities is borne mainly by women and children. We conclude by identifying ways in which policy can enhance the positive outcomes of more accumulative migration and also provide support to reduce vulnerability in the case of the poor who migrate to survive. 1 We define a migration stream as a specific combination of caste, origin, destination and type of work at the destination. Therefore, a change in any of these four factors would make a different migration stream. vi 1 1 Introduction Seasonal and circular (also known as cyclical, oscillatory) migration, has long been part of the livelihood portfolio of poor people across India (see for example Usha Rao’s 1994 study of Palamur labour in Andhra Pradesh, de Haan’s (2002) historical study of migration in Western Bihar, or Srivastava and Ali’s 1981 study of labourers from Bundelkhand). It is now recognised that migration is a part of the normal livelihood strategy of the poor (Mc Dowell and De Haan, 1997) and does not occur only during times of emergency or distress. Although panel data on seasonal migration in India are lacking, a growing number of micro-studies have established that seasonal migration for employment is growing both in terms of absolute numbers but also in relation to the size of the working population as a whole (Breman, 1985; Breman, 1996; Rao, 1994; Rogaly et al, 2001). The National Commission on Rural Labour (NCRL) puts the number of circular migrants in rural areas alone at around 10 million (including roughly 4.5 million inter-State migrants and 6 million intra-State migrants). But the departments of rural development, agriculture and labour are not geared to dealing with migrants and just regard them as external to the systems that they work with. According to the NCRL, the majority of seasonal migrants are employed in cultivation and plantations, brick-kilns, quarries, construction sites and fish processing. Further, large numbers of seasonal migrants work in urban informal manufacturing, construction, services or transport sectors, employed as casual labourers, head-loaders, rickshaw pullers and hawkers (Dev, 2002). However, official awareness of the magnitude of seasonal migration or the importance of it in the lives of the poor is abysmally low. Policy-makers have tended to perceive migration largely as a problem, posing a threat to social and economic stability and have therefore tried to control it, rather than viewing it as an important livelihood option for the poor.