New figures for old stories: Migration and remittances in Nepal

Abstract

Labour migration and remittances are major economic mainstays for Nepal’s economy. However, there is still insufficient documentation on scale and significance of this process. Estimations of migration figures suggest that real numbers are several times higher than official statistics show. Therefore this article contributes to the emerging debate of the last years comparing latest national statistics with own empirical data. The paper concludes that the total numbers of migrants calculated by the authors closely corresponds with official statistics, while amount of remittances seems to be higher indeed, highlighting once more that labour migration and remittances are an important mainstay of Nepal’s economy.

Does outmigration lead to land degradation? Labour shortage and land management in a western Nepal watershed

“…While people have migrated for decades from the hills to the low plains of Terai or to India when land became scarce (Graner & Gurung, 2003;Kollmair, Manandhar, Subedi, & Thieme, 2006;Seddon, Gurung, & Adhikari, 1998), the current exodus to foreign countries or to urban areas has led to marked changes in the demographics of the hills (Blaikie, Cameron, & Seddon, 2002;Ghimire & Upreti, 2012;Seddon et al, 1998). According to 2014 statistics, 1,349 1 people leave the country every day (not counting those who leave through the open border with India or illegally).…”

Mountain poverty in the Hindu-Kush Himalayas

“…Hence, labour migration has become a significant livelihood option available to a household (Kreutzmann 1993, Ediger and Huafang 2006, de Haas 2007, Sharma 2008, Cavassa 2009, Hoermann et al 2010, Mariscal et al 2011. Nonetheless, this can lead to unfavourable household compositions in the mountains (Kaspar 2005, Kollmair et al 2006, Hoermann et al 2010. It is expected that a higher percentage of female-headed households and a higher dependency ratio (number of dependents per labour force) will be found in the mountain areas, which should contribute to more intense poverty.…”

Choosing a Destination and Work

“…Since the 1990s and the boom in international migration from Nepal, labor migration has been the focus of many studies (Seddon et al 2001;Von der Heide and Hoffman 2001;CBS 2004;Thieme and Müller-Böker 2004;Wyss 2004;Kaspar 2005;Thieme and Wyss 2005;Kollmair et al 2006;Thieme 2006). In the meantime, Nepalese migrants' official remittances have increased to represent 16.8% of total GDP in (NRB 2007, whereas, if unofficial streams of money were also taken into account, their share might rise to 25% of GDP (Shrestha 2007).…”