Land-holding, participation in agriculture and short-term migration in rural India

ABSTRACT

We analyse a nationally representative data set from India for the year 2013 in order to provide evidence on how short-term migration is affected by household ownership of land and participation in agricultural activities. We estimate a recursive-bivariate-probit model recognising the simultaneity between short-term migration and the decision to operate the land. The results of the likelihood ratio test imply that it would be incorrect to ignore this simultaneity. Households with less than 1 ha of land and those leasing out land are more likely to have a short-term migrant. Households leaving their land fallow, a common occurrence in South Asia, are also more likely to have a short-term migrant. Moreover, the choice of crops and livestock farming has a significant role to play in the migration decision. Current initiatives to increase coverage of irrigation and facilitate access to formal finance could improve the livelihoods of small and marginal farmers, thereby reducing the probability of distress-related short-term migration.

KEYWORDS:

• Short-term migrants
• small-marginal farmers
• agricultural households
• mobility
• Asia
• India

JEL CODES:

• O1
• R2

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

S. Chandrasekhar http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4790-0869

Soham Sahoo http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2633-4231

Notes

1 See Keshri and Bhagat (2013), Agrawal and Chandrasekhar (2016), and Chandrasekhar et al. (2015). A recent contribution using primary surveys is Dodd et al. (2016).

2 In India, the contribution of rural-urban migration to urban population growth in the last two decades has been in the region 21–22 per cent (Pradhan, 2013).

3 The nature of possession of a plot of land can be of three types: owned, leased in, or otherwise possessed by the household. A plot is located within the village, outside the village but within the district, outside the district but within the state, or outside the state. The duration of possession of the land is from one of these: less than one agricultural season, at least one agricultural season but less than one agricultural year, at least one agricultural year but less than two agricultural years, and two agricultural years or more. Each plot of land possessed by the household can be classified as a homestead land or used for crop production, livestock farming, or other agricultural and non-agricultural uses. Information on whether a plot of land was irrigated (canal, minor surface works, ground water, or any combination of these sources) is available.

4 Livestock land, which is part of the possessed land by the household, and not a common property resource or common grazing land, is used for farming of animals.

5 See Manual on Cost of Cultivation Surveys by CSO, India http://mospi.nic.in/Mospi_New/upload/manual_cost_cultivation_surveys_23july08.pdf

6 We also find that short-term migrants are less likely to belong to households where the head is more educated. Household head’s gender and education related variables are included in the regression but not reported in the table; they are available on request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [grant number OPP1029478]; Tata Trusts [grant number JTT/MUM/UPL/PD/IV/IGIDR/2011-2012/0089].