COPYRIGHT AND USE OF THIS THESIS This thesis must be used in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. Reproduction of material protected by copyright may be an infringement of copyright and copyright owners may be entitled to take legal action against persons who infringe their copyright. Section 51 (2) of the Copyright Act permits an authorized officer of a university library or archives to provide a copy (by communication or otherwise) of an unpublished thesis kept in the library or archives, to a person who satisfies the authorized officer that he or she requires the reproduction for the purposes of research or study. The Copyright Act grants the creator of a work a number of moral rights, specifically the right of attribution, the right against false attribution and the right of integrity. You may infringe the author’s moral rights if you: - fail to acknowledge the author of this thesis if you quote sections from the work - attribute this thesis to another author - subject this thesis to derogatory treatment which may prejudice the author’s reputation For further information contact the University’s Copyright Service. sydney.edu.au/copyright Livelihoods on the Move: Understanding the Linkages Between Migration and Household Food Security in India Chetan Choithani Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Geosciences The University of Sydney 2015 To the memory of my grandparents Paribai & Tejumal Declaration I declare that this thesis is the result of my own independent research and that all authorities and sources thAt have been used are duly acknowledged. Parts of Chapter 3 draw on the book I co-authored during my PhD candidature. The details of the publications are as follows: Pritchard, Bill, Rammohan, Anu, Sekher, Madhushree, Parasuraman, S, Choithani, Chetan. (2014). Feeding India: Livelihoods, entitlements and capabilities. Oxon: Routledge. Part of Chapter 6 has been published as a journal article, details of which are provided below: Choithani, Chetan, Pritchard, Bill (2015). Assessing Bihar’s coupon-based PDS: Importance of local context. Economic and Political Weekly, 50(1), pp. 61-68. Financial support for my PhD studies was provided through the 2011 round of Prime Minister Australia-Asia Endeavour Postgraduate Award of the Australian Government. The research reported in this thesis was linked with the Australian Research Council’s (ARC) project 1094112 (Institutions for food security: global insights from rural India), and the fieldwork carried out for this study was also partially funded by this wider ARC project. Chetan Choithani 25 March, 2015 i Abstract This thesis exAmines the role of internal migration as a livelihood strategy in influencing food access Among rural households. Internal migration has become a key component of livelihood strategies for an increasing number of rural households Across many countries in the developing world. Importantly, unlike earlier periods when migration was often viewed as a problem, there is now a growing consensus among academics and policy makers on the potential positive effects of migration in reducing poverty and promoting sustainable human development. Concurrently, the significance of “food security for all” as an important development objective has been rising, particularly since the 2007-08 global food crisis. However, the Academic and policy discussions on these two issues hAve largely tended to proceed in silos, with little attention devoted to the relAtionship they bear with each other. This thesis attempts to fill this gAp in the specific context of India, the country with the most underfed people in the world and where internal migration has traditionally been centrAl to rural livelihoods. Using a case- study approach, involving primary survey data collected from an equally representative sample of 392 migrant and non-migrant households from the high outmigration district of Siwan in western Bihar, this thesis provides empirical household-level insights on the interface between migration and food security. Contrary to conventional wisdom that posits migration as a household food security strategy only in times of food shortages, this thesis argues that the relationship between them is bidirectional. Food insecurity can be a critical driver of households’ migration decisions, and subsequent remittances can ease household food insecurity. The empirical evidence in this thesis asserts an appreciation of three key pathways that shape these forward-backward linkages: i) the role of food and livelihood safety nets in influencing households’ food security situation and their migration decisions; ii) the extent to which migrants’ remittances are received by households and the mAnner in which they are used; and iii) the ways that migration affects gender dynAmics within households. The evidence presented in this thesis shows that these processes manifest at various levels, and hence produce complex outcomes with respect to the migration-food security relationship. In the wake of recent evidence on the rising significance of migration in rural livelihood systems in India, and indeed, across a number of developing countries, the findings reported in this thesis warrant A pressing policy need to better integrate migration in future food policy research and practice. iii Acknowledgements Though the PhD is largely An individual project, carrying out research over the period of four years essentially means that there are many helping hands along the way. It gives me immense delight to be able to acknowledge the help and support of friends, colleagues and family who made this ride smoother than it otherwise would have been. First and foremost, I express my deep gratitude to my primary research supervisor Bill Pritchard, Associate Professor in Human Geography, University of Sydney, whose able supervision since the inception of this study through to its completion, and expertise on the subject, helped me to look at my research in A holistic manner. Bill patiently and thoroughly read my thesis chapters, and provided invaluable and encouraging comments. His sharp editing, which picked up errors that I often overlooked, was of immense help and has improved the final shape of this thesis. I have learned a great deal from the many discussions we have had over the course of my PhD journey. His words that “research is not necessarily about answering the question but it is about critically engaging with it” shall always be a source of guiding light, and it is in this sprit that I have researched and written this thesis. Bill was not just my mentor but also A friend and family in Australia. I cannot thank him enough, and I could not have asked for a better supervisor. I must also record my appreciation of the support provided by my associAte research supervisor, Jeffery Neilson, Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Sydney. My heartfelt thanks to All the household survey participants who unconditionally welcomed me in their lives and let me learn more about them. Conducting field- research on the issue of food insecurity inevitably meant that several of the surveyed households did not have the mAteriAl conditions to be food secure all-year round. This did not, however, deter them to offer me food. I am also thankful to the migrant members of the surveyed households who took time out of their busy working schedules to talk to me; some of them did not even mind losing their daily wages. I Am deeply in debt of the warmth and hospitality of all the survey participants. It is my sincere hope that I have done some justice to their voice. Thanks goes to John Connell, Professor in Human Geography, University of Sydney. John took a good deal of interest in my research and whenever I presented my work in the v school seminars, he always raised critical questions and provided encouraging feedback. His stimulAting questions aided me in refining some of the arguments in this thesis. John also read some of the thesis chapters and provided useful comments on substantive and editoriAl Aspects. This thesis has also benefited from the many useful discussions I had with Bob Fisher. Thanks also to Yayoi Fujita, Jo Gillespie, Kurt Iveson, Phil Hirsch and Phil McmAnus for their encouragement and support during my time At the department. Financial support for my PhD studies was provided through a Prime Minister Australia- Asia Endeavour Postgraduate Award of the AustraliAn Government. I feel honoured to have received this prestigious scholarship, and I sincerely thank the Government of Australia for the same. I also thank Trang Hoang, my case manager for this scholarship at Austraining InternationAl (now Scope Global), for making the Award experience even more memorable. The fieldwork for thesis was partially funded by the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Project entitled, Institutions for food security: global insights from rural India. I thank the principal investigators of this project, Bill Pritchard, Madhushree Sekher and Anu Rammohan, for providing me with funds for the fieldwork. I am grateful to my friends: Soumi Mukherjee, Bidhyadhar Dehury and Sujata Ganguly for their assistance in the analysis of Indian Census data on migration; Ian Sinclair and Nathan Wales for helping me with the maps used in this thesis; Srinivas Goli and Katie Cahill for promptly answering my queries on some of the statistical analysis; And Erin Smith for helping me with the formatting of the thesis. Thanks also to my flAtmate and friend, Alex M. Thomas, who did not mind being my sounding board and who Also read a couple of my thesis chapters And provided useful feedback. Thanks to Professor Laishram Ladu Singh and Professor Chander Sekher of the International Institute for Population Studies, Mumbai, for clarifying my doubts on the sampling design for household surveys carried out for this thesis. Thanks also to my field investigators, Bhagwan Sah, Jitendra Yadav and Shiv Shankar, for their assistance in conducting the village-level household surveys, and for teaching me A few Bhojpuri greetings which smoothened the field research.