Husbands’ migration: increased burden on or more autonomy for wives left behind?

ABSTRACT

Migration of men has important influences on reshaping family and gender roles in left-behind wives. However, it is unclear whether husbands’ out-migration increases the burden on or creates autonomy for left-behind wives. Using new data from Nepal, we examine the associations of husband’s out-migration and remittance status with the work burden and autonomy of left-behind wives’. Results of our multi-level multivariate analyses show that the number of months a husband migrated internationally during the last year is significantly associated with an increase in participation in farming activities for the left-behind wives. Husband’s out-migration and remittance status are also associated with an increase in wives’ number of daily activities outside the home, and leisure activities and media use. In sum, husbands’ out-migration might be good and bad for women, by increasing the burden on wives while also promoting their freedom of movement, leisure activities and media use. Importantly these findings are net of wives’ individual background characteristics, household characteristics and community context measures.

KEYWORDS:

• Husband out-migration
• wives
• burden
• autonomy
• South Asia

Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the respondents and the staff of the Institute for Social and Environmental Research in Nepal for their contribution to this research.

Disclosure statement

Dr. Ghimire is also the Director of the Institute for Social and Environmental Research in Nepal (ISER–N) that collected the data for the research reported here. Dr. Ghimire’s conflict of interest management plan is approved and monitored by the Regents of the University of Michigan.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the UK Data Bank and the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) at the University of Michigan.

Notes

1 We used the amount of 300,000 Nepali Rupees as a cut-off because in the distribution of remittances, 300,000 Nepali Rupees is around the 75th percentile. We also used the amount of 192,000 Nepali Rupees as a cut-off that is around the median of the remittance distribution. Even though the magnitude is slightly different, model results of significance are consistent.

2 To avoid collinearity in the number of male migrants in the household, we excluded the husbands from number of male migrants.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Department for International Development – Economic and Social Research Council (DFID – ESRC) Growth Research Programme [grant number ES/L012065/1] and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) [grant numbers R01HD32912 and P2CHD041028].