Returning Home: The Middle‐Income Trap and Gendered Norms in Thailand

Abstract

We personalise the middle‐income trap by exploring the experiences of migrants from north‐east Thailand, most of whom return to their natal villages as a result of family decisions based on more than achieving higher incomes. Whereas men are largely content, women have to balance a range of roles because of prescribed gender norms. Increased education and migration did not lead to higher value work on their return because of lack of investment and opportunity, but also because of gender norms and relationships that reflect rather than challenge the norms that would allow women (and men) to develop new employment opportunities. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Gendered translocal connectedness: Rural–urban migration, remittances, and social resilience in Thailand

“…We can just do it by ourselves without middle men […] and without being taken advantage of. (May 30 Cole et al, 2015;Le Mare et al, 2015). Meanwhile, in households whose socio-economic standing limits their ability and willingness to take risks regarding their livelihood system, using remittances tends to sustain the existing level of agricultural activity and practices or, if possible, intensify the production to take as much advantage of the well-known techniques as possible while avoiding experiments and substantial changes (see also Davis & Lopez-Carr, 2014).…”

“…Although academic and policy debates on remittances and their impact have for a long time rather neglected the gender dimension, for example, by presupposing remittance senders to be male migrants and receivers to be women (Gioli, Khan, Bisht, & Scheffran, 2014; Kunz, 2018), the interdependence of gender relations and remittance sending and usage has more recently gained traction in migration–development and migration–adaptation debates (Bettini & Gioli, 2015; Evertsen & Geest, 2019; King, Mata‐Codesal, & Vullnetari, 2013; Nyberg‐Sørensen, 2005; Petrozziello, 2011). Relevant research strands that have explored gender–remittance links include research on rural livelihoods (e.g., Thieme & Siegmann, 2010; Tiwari & Joshi, 2016) and rural–urban interaction (Le Mare, Promphaking, & Rigg, 2015; Tacoli & Mabala, 2010), transnationalism (e.g., Abrego, 2009; Hammond, 2011; King et al, 2013), gender studies (e.g., Resurreccion, 2005), and development studies (e.g., Naerssen, 2015). Overall, these works indicate that gender and class, age, and ethnicity, among others, influence the shaping of remittance sending and usage (Naerssen, 2015).…”

Internal Return Migration in Rural of Vietnam: Reasons and Consequences

“…Last but not least , return is seen by migrants as a natural progression of family life. When migrants left their village, it was in the promise to return (Le Mare, Promphaking, & Rigg, 2015).…”

“…In addition, returnees with low educational level or skills faced a constrain of good employment opportunities. Therefore, a more reasonable options were to take low skill works in local fatories, work as daily hired labors or to return agricultural works (Le Mare et al, 2015) Another body of literature that puts arguments on the deteminants of the consequences of return relates to individual characteristics. The probability of becoming an entrepreneur is affected by the age of returnees.…”

Rethinking Asian poverty in a time of Asian prosperity

“…But studies seem to show that a rather larger proportion of the population self‐identify as poor. In a 2012–2013 survey of 105 household heads in three villages in Khon Kaen, one of the northeast's wealthier provinces, 46% or 44% said that they were either ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’ (Le Mare et al, : 293). We see, therefore, two divergent trends: growing income wealth on the one hand, and, apparently, growing discontent on the other.…”