Accepted Panels

Abstract

1. Most of social scientists engaged in the study of economies and social costs of migration over the years. considered the cause of labour migration for centuries, is under debate recently. Social, cultural, and agrarian changes were unintended consequences of labour migration. Youth from rural areas have migrated to urban areas and abroad for better economic opportunities for social prestige and escape from the traditional agrarian system. Previous seasonal migration to India, maintained agrarian culture and production when the migrant returned to fulfill the responsibility of agriculture at home. The third-country labour migration could not balance agriculture and migration in the home country. The paper’s objective is to explore and analyze agricultural recession (decline of agricultural production, arable land turned fallow land) and changing livelihood strategies of migrants’ families both in villages and cities. Migration studies unnoticed to explore the unintended consequences of out-migration on rural agriculture, agrarian society, and culture. Based on in-depth interviews, observations and household surveys carried out in a village in Mid-western Nepal, this study tries to depict the agricultural crisis in the rural village due to labor migration. It also analyzes priority areas of remittance investment out of agriculture, and consumer habits. Changes in economic policy in 1990, subsequent Maoist insurgency, and globalization of goods and services set the macro-structure of labour migration from villages in Nepal. In micro-levels, the migrant households and the village at large experienced labour and youth vacuum. The migrant households tend to face a not only dearth of agrarian labor during pick seasons but also the insufficiency of support during sick, rituals, and collective work (Marda-parda).