Male out-migration from the Himalaya: implications in gender roles and household food (in)security in the Kaligandaki Basin, Nepal

ABSTRACT

This paper investigates implications of male labour migration in gender roles and identity of women, and household food security outcome in the Kaligandaki Basin, Nepal. The study covers three study-clusters located at different ecological zones: Meghauli in Tarai, Lumle in Middle-Mountains, and Upper-Mustang in Trans-Himalaya. Data on private domain were collected through face-to-face interview in 360 households while data on public domain were obtained from group discussions conducted in 24 communities, and Key Informants Interviews taken with 75 individuals. The findings indicate that out-migration of men compelled women shoulder additional work-burden. Feminisation of agriculture and communities has reduced farm-production and increased food insecurity in terms of self-production. However, it is compensated by remittance sent by migrants and associated increase in access to marketed food. Despite male out-migration giving opportunity to women to be a household manager, it is limited to be a de facto household-head who lacks control over household assets. They have poor influence in community decision-making too, though increased the participation. Women in the basin are performing the roles of both men and women so are lacking particular gender identity. These findings indicate the need of integrating gender policy with migration, agriculture, and food security policies of Nepal.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration
• Gender roles
• Food security
• Himalaya
• Nepal

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge Pokhara University Research Centre (PURC), Pokhara University, Nepal for assisting this research financially under Faculty Research Grant (03/2072/73); the University of Adelaide, Department of Geography Environment and Population for financial support for field work; and Kamal Sing Thapa, Dharma Raj Parajuli, Deependra Pandit, Pawan Chitrakar, Ramji Prasad Adhikari and Ram Prasad Sharma for assisting me during the field work. As this paper was presented at Work, Identity and Livelihoods in Nepal (WIL) Conference (22–23 July 2017) Delhi, I would like to acknowledge the organizing committee of the conference for providing me an opportunity to share this work and receive constructive feedback from the reviewer of the paper, chair of the panel, and other participants of the conference. I am also indebted to the peer reviewer of earlier manuscript and the editor of the journal for their generous feedback, which helped refine this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. https://www.iom.int/global-migration-trends Assessed on 24.01.2019.

2. https://www.popline.org/node/348892.

3. https://www.iom.int/global-migration-trends Assessed on 24.01.2019.

4. https://www.iom.int/global-migration-trends Assessed on 24.01.2019.

5. National Population and Housing Census 2011, Nepal, recorded the out-migrants as ‘absentees’.

6. Interactive hunger map (2012–2014) viewed 7 February 2015 http://www.fao.org/hunger/en/.

7. Parts of this section might overlap with original unpublished PhD Thesis (Pandey, 2016b) and a published paper (Pandey & Bardsley, 2015) since the paper used information from the same project.

8. Figure 1 is first printed in Pandey and Bardsley (2015) and it is re-used here with permission from Elsevier.

9. Women attend various meetings of social issues representing as a member of community (household) however, available limited elite men rarely seek their opinion and their voice are not recognized as influential for decision. However, whenever there is an activity to perform, women are the actor and men supervise them.

10. Other family member fear that if the wife of the migrant male is tortured, they will not receive the remittance and women would migrate to towns or to cities with her kids if the migrant man supports her instead of supporting extended family.

11. Reported by research participants of Lumle.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by the Pokhara University Research Centre (PURC), Nepal [03/072/073] for this part of analysis and The University of Adelaide, Australia for field work under the PhD project of the author.

Notes on contributors

Rishikesh Pandey

Rishikesh PANDEY received his PhD from the University of Adelaide, Australia in 2016. He is deputed as a Director of Quality Assurance and Accreditation Division (QAAD), University Grants Commission, Nepal and is a Member Secretary of Higher Education Quality Assurance and Accreditation Council (HEQAAC), Nepal. His research interests cover broadly social-ecological system and related theories and methodologies. He enjoys creating inter-disciplinary dialogue in research output. Dr Pandey has successfully lead several research projects funded by the University Grants Commission, Social Inclusion Research Fund, and UNFPA. He has published over two dozen of research articles in internationally recognized scholarly journals and have co-authored two research books. He is a Member of Development and Social Engineering Subject Committee of Pokhara University, and UN-SDG - Interlinkage Working Group. He is also a Member of Editorial Board of ‘Dhaulagiri Journal of Sociology and Anthropology.’