Labour drain, social change and rural production in Ethiopia
Chapter One
1. Introduction
1.1 Statement of the problem/background of the study
In this era of globalization, almost all countries in the world are involved in migration as
countries of origin, destination, or transit—or all three. Of the several millions of people living
outside their countries of birth, the ILO estimates that almost 90 per cent are migrant workers
and their families (www.ILO.org). In the face of the very selective nature of twenty first century
transnational labour migration, rural sending communities or countries of origin are on the verge
of contentious disorganization and reorganization of their socio-economic lives. At the same
time, the selective nature makes it easy to move as an individual rather than to migrate with a
family. This leads to the creation of new relationships and connections between the migrant and
the sending household. There is a growing intensification of labour migration in social and
economic terms. Labour migration has become a ‘Sine qua no’ of the new globalized and
industrial world.
In recent years, labour migration has made headlines in both academic and artistic writings. It
has become cause and at the same time result of globalization. In a time of ever-increasing
globalization, transnational migration has become the umbilical cord connecting the global North
and South. Social and economic remittances are the highway lines for the network. That is why
policies dealing with immigration and emigration are currently a hotly debated issues in global
and domestic political and economic arenas.
According to ILO, 2006, about half of the world’s migrants are women. Global estimates by sex
confirm that by 1960, the number of female cross-border migrants reached almost the same
number as male migrants, and this ratio has not changed significantly since then (ILO, 2006).
The Ethiopian Diaspora wave entered a new stage after 1999, largely comprised of semi or
unskilled women labour migrants as a domestic worker in the Arab and Gulf countries. During
the last five years, this wave to the Arab and Gulf countries has shown a tremendous increase in
the out flow and the return socio-economic impact in the country. The study has mainly focused
on this migration trend that is totally or partly has changed and still changing the demographic
pyramid of rural part of Ethiopia. Its impact on the sending community’s’ family life, kinship
relations and rural household production are point of focus. The study also provides concise
focus on the general pattern of the labour drain in the study area.
The migrant’s life in the receiving community i.e. Arab countries, which has been over
researched, is not under the conceptual scope of the study; rather the study focuses on the way of
life of the migrants family in the rural villages and the changing patterns in social life (division
of labour, martial and gender relationship and kinship ties) and rural production. Change in the
material culture of the sending household as caused by the social and economic remittances is
also discussed in this paper. In other word, the study has tried to demonstrate that transnational
communities are emerging in the 'place of departure' while the main stream migration study sees
transnational communities as only formed in the 'place of destination'.
In this paper, the impact of out migration from the rural community to Arab countries on the
rural sending community will be analyzed from four different viewpoints: first, the absence of
the labour force from the community; second, the process of the labour drain i.e. the impact of
how to cover the cost of the labour drain; third, the social and economic remittances which
include the ideas, behaviors, identities, and social capital that flow from receiving- to sendingcountry communities (Levitt, 2001, p. 926); and finally, the impact of the return of the migrants
to the community (return migration) on the socio-economic life of the household.
The other point that this study has focused on is the community’s dependency on their farmland
and livestock vi-sa-vise passing over this cattle and land for money through contract or selling
tier land or farm animal to pay the expensive cost of tickets and the visa process. The rest of the
family becomes dependent on the economic remittances. This had an effect on the rural
production; it is shifting from dependency on agriculture to remittances and other economic
openings like trading activities. On the other hand using the economic remittances for better
agricultural practice was also observed during the study.
On the other side of the narrative this study takes an ephemeral look at the new wave of
migration i.e. migration induced migration. Labour drain to the Arab countries induced a rural
urban migration of the rural household by making the families in the sending community less
dependent on the environment and more dependent upon remittances. It also mainly reinforces
the young members of the community to follow the migrants track to the Arab countries or to
employ themselves in non-agricultural activities.
Unlike other studies on transnational migration and social change that base their analysis on
macro level global cultural change, this study focuses on ‘the micro level transnational labour
drain driven form of social change and change in rural production in the sending community’.
The study was carried out as a cross sectional one time contact to the study population in a
predominantly qualitative approach. The study is descriptive in nature and contains analytical
ethnography but also some comparative analysis of the socio-economic and environmental
changes and transformation over a short period. The study has two variables: the independent
and dependent variables i.e. the labour drain as independent variable and the socio-economic life
and agriculture of the sending community as dependent or affected by the independent variable.
Moreover, the comparison is between the past and the present socio-economic and
environmental circumstances using systematic analysis and observation of the current
community life and oral narratives and official documents of the past. The personal stories of
several respondents are also presented as a case study to supplement the basic arguments of the
study.
1.2 Major research questions
This study aims to answer the following questions through data collection and analysis:
1. How does the labour drain operate in the community, a very epigrammatic discussion of the
causes and indictors?
2. What are the social changes brought on by the labour drain in the sending community?
3. What are the changes to rural production caused by labour drain in the rural village?
N.B the study is not only focusing on what are the impacts but also how it affects the socioeconomic life and the environment.
1.5 Significance of the study
This section will provide brief description on the various significances of the study given the
three categories of education, politics and economy. There have been relatively few studies
connected to transnational labour drain in the study area and its impact. The impact of
transnational labour drain has never been observed from the community level as previous studies
give more focus on individual stories and fail to account for the impact on the community’s
socio-economic life in general. Therefore, the study will help to enrich knowledge in this
multidisciplinary field of study. The other educational significance of this study is the dispelling
of the perception of the general public and mass medias of the labour drain as an individual
choice by clearing up that it is also a household adjustment mechanism to a harsh situation. In
other word, it will bridge the knowledge gap. The last educational significance regards the
conclusions and data presented in this study as an asset and reference for further academic
researchers on the area of transnational labour drain.
In a slight economic sense, the findings of this study will synthesize the conception of the
transnational labour drain by the government at different levels and nongovernmental
organizations as unhealthy to the rural economy in general and agriculture in particular. Data
from the rural faming households prove that the remittances received from migration help them
to advance their income and improvise their faming practice. To some extent, these partly wrong
perceptions about the labour drain prevent labour migrants and their family from getting the best
out of it.
The last but not the least significance of the study is more inclined to political or policy making
issues concerning the labour drain at regional and national level. With ever increasing
globalization and interconnectedness, any kind of political intervention to very sensitive and
volatile aspects, which tap almost every corner of a society, should be well counseled and
informed from the onset. This research will be able to provide in-depth information and data for
policy makers at different level and NGOs working around the subject of labour drain and rural
development. Its aim is also to add to the existing body of knowledge to help formulate
appropriate policies that reflect women’s participation in the migratory process.
Chapter two
Theoretical and analytical frame work
Migration research has dealt mainly with the forces which affect flow of migration and how
strongly they have affected it, but little has been done to determine the influence of migration as
an equilibrating mechanism between sending and receiving communities in a changing global
economy and social reality (Sjaastad, 1962).
Migration studies in anthropology ask the question how does migration effect cultural change
and affect ethnic identity with more micro level of analysis. The dominant theories in the field
are structuralism and transnational theories (Brettell and Hollifield, 2010).
2.1 Theorizing Transnational Migration
In recent years the notion of transnationalism has entered the lexicon of migration scholars who
are attracted to its endeavor to capture the distinctive nature of immigrant communities that have
developed in advanced industrial nation (Kivisto, 2001). The theoretical framework of the study
is inclined to the transnational theory of migration and inserts some rethinking of the conceptual
and geographical coverage of the theory. Recent studies indicate that the conception of the
transnational community and transnationalism has a limited capacity to capture the impact of
migration in sending communities. This is because ' transnational community' has been used as a
synonym for ‘immigrant community’ in developed nations by many studies (Kivisto, 2001). On
the other hand, many studies have been done on the relationship between locales in one
particular sending community and the receiving country; however, they have failed to
demonstrate how widespread transnational practices actual are among the community (Levitt,
2001). The ongoing debate over the investment of economic remittances in the sending
community and the changes brought by the social remittance still needs empirical arguments.
2.2 The Economic Remittances: Migration and Development
Remittance-use studies focus on how migrant remittances and hoards are actually spent and deals
with comparisons of expenditures between households with and without foreign income (Tayler
et al.
1996). There are two poles around which academic debates concerning migration,
transnationalism, and globalization take place: “ is migration a negative drain on a community,
leaving in its wake increased dependency and unmet dreams or is it a stimulus to local (if
limited) economic success?” (Cohen, 2001: 955). I argue together with Cohen that in place of
blanket generalizations concerning migration's outcomes, we look at the historical growth of
transnational movement as well as the structure of household decision making to better
understand the range of migration and remittance outcomes and their impact on rural
communities.
The effects of these remittances at the national level are positive for the economy in general and
act as "safety nets for poor regions left behind by the agglomerative behavior of international
capital and as an equilibrating mechanism, by the preoccupation of the international community
with other matters, and by the indifference of their own government" (Cohen, 2001:954).
Nevertheless, debate continues over the impact and importance of migration and the use of
remittances for rural peasant communities and peasant households. There are two objections to
relying on remittances to save the argument for rural-urban migration as a cause of intra-rural or
rural-urban equalization. First, total net remittances are very small compared with rural income
in the great majority of villages; indeed, they are often negative; and second, positive remittances
go disproportionately to the better-off; town ward migrants, especially the remitters and, above
all, the transnational remitters who send back really large sums, are seldom from the poorest
village groups (Lipton, 1980).
2.2.1 The Two Models on the Use of Economic Remittances
Much has been said and argued concerning the importance of economic remittances and
outcomes of migration for the sending community but two models have dominated the debate
over the outcomes of migration and remittance use: Dependency and Development (Brettell,
2000:104).
Dependency models focus on the socio-economic costs of migration, while development models
point toward the economic growth that can come from the careful use of remittances.
Dependency models argue that migration aggravates local socio-economic inequalities, escalate
economic dependency, and drives sterile consumption within peasant households while creating
pools of cheap labour waiting to be exploited (Reichert, 1981in Cohen, 2001). In this pattern,
rural communities become little more than nurseries for the young (future migrants) and "homes"
for the elderly (those no longer able to migrate). The outcome of this process is the social
disintegration of sending communities as the able-bodied are siphoned away by the pull of job
opportunities and the disruption of local practices as remittances are wasted (Cohen, 2001:955).
Some migration economists like Duran and Massey 1999 make pessimistic conclusion about this
situation. In their own words;
"Rather than concluding that migration inevitably leads to dependency and a lack of
development, it is more appropriate to ask why productive investment occurs in some
communities and not in others. In general, a perusal of...communities suggests that the
highest levels of business formation and investment occur in urban communities, rural
communities with access to urban markets, or rural communities with favorable
agricultural conditions" (Duran and Massey, 1999: 89).
This situation has also been reflected and observed during fieldwork in 'Werebabu' community as
the more selective nature of the current labour drain pattern brings dramatic change to the rural
demography.
Dependency models insist that mass labour departure undermines the prospects for economic
intensification. Transnational migration is widely thought to reinforce a pattern of dependent
community development, whereby higher living standards are achieved through the inflow of
money i.e. economic remittances from abroad rather than from the expansion of economic
activity at home. The end result is a way of life that cannot be sustained through local labour,
yielding a host of negative side effects, including income inequality, inflation, lost production,
and higher unemployment (Tayler et al. 1996).
On the other hand, development models emphasize the benefits of migration and the positive
outcomes that are possible with the cautious investment of remittances (Taylor 1999:73). There
is increasing evidence of economic progress fostered by what Cohen (1999) refer as
"migradollars" (the dollars generated through transnational migration) nationally and locally.
Remittances become the basis for what migrants describe as the self-advancement of their
households, families, and communities (Cohen, 1999). These funds underwrite the expansion of
utility services such as water and electricity, support and revive the ritual life of the community,
and help families cover the costs of participating in the social and political life of their
community (ibid, see also Smith 1998).
Taylor (1996) point out two factors for what he calls “obstacles to the effective promotion of
development through emigration” emerges from a careful reading of the research literature. First,
poor public services and infrastructure seriously limit the potential for contributions to local
production. Most migrant-sending communities are rural villages distant from natural markets
and lacking basic infrastructure such as paved roads, electricity, running water, sewage systems,
and telephones. Many are characterized by poor quality land, a fragmented tenure system, and
unequal land distribution. It is unrealistic to expect migration to promote development where
complementary infrastructure, services, and ecological conditions are so unfavorable (Taylor et
al. 1996: 401). People drift "because of the lack of meaningful development in the first place. In
the absence of policies designed to channel migrants' savings into productive investment, it is
naive to expect migrants to behave very differently" (Georges 1990: 170).
The second obstacle is closely related to the first: a lack of well-functioning factor markets
(notably, rural credit markets). The absence of such markets means that migrants and their
families end up serving as both the procurers of migrant savings and the intermediaries between
migration and development. To expect migrants to be proficient at turning savings into
production is unrealistic. Migration is likely to have a larger effect on development where local
institutions exist to gather savings by migrant households and make them available to local
producers--that is, where migrants do not have to play simultaneous roles as workers, savers,
investors, and producers (Taylor et al. 1996).
What has been overlooked in the study of transnational labour migration and its outcomes as also
suggested by Cohen (2001) is an integrative transnational approach. We need an approach that
breaks down the paradoxes of dependency and development; moreover, it needs to define the
outcomes of migration and remittance use as rooted in a series of interdependencies. It should
emphasize production and consumption, class and ethnicity, and the individual and the
community while transcending localities and national boundaries. Cohen (2001) further argues
that for a more advanced transnational model, we must pay careful consideration to how this
interdependencies plays out in the sending or home communities. He organize a three-part
approach to migration that captures the dynamics and local unevenness of transnational
movement and remittance use: first part, migration as stage specific process; second part,
migration as progressive and collective response; and the third part, migration fostering
development through remittances(Cohen, 2001).
Cohen (2001) explores these three areas to understand the local effects and outcomes of
transnational movement. The first part, transnational migration, is defined as a stage-specific
process identified by three discrete phases that influence the degree of social inequality present
within a community. The second part, the decision to migrate, is defined as progressive, made
within the confines of the household and in response to the development cycle of the domestic
group. The third part, remittances, can support a range of strategies including selfaggrandizement, household reproduction, business investment, and community development
(Granovetter 1995; Rogers 1991; Russell 1986; Taylor 1999 in Cohen 2001).
Cohen’s (2001) ‘first part’ of the ‘three part approach’ suggests there are three stages of
transnational migration. First the repeated movements of "target" earners looking for short-term
economic success and increased income for specific expenditures. Target earners are typically
high-status individuals who hold economic advantages in their communities. Thus, the first stage
of migration tends to increase socio-economic division within rural sending communities.
In its second stage, transnational migration becomes more common as people emulate the
successes of target earners. The process of migration becomes self-reinforcing in response to a
decline in the risks and costs of migration and the migrant pool becomes more heterogeneous in
age, gender, and social status (Massey et al. 1994 in Cohen, 2001:958). In response to internal
momentum and rising heterogeneity in the migrant pool, socio-economic inequality declines
among local households in the second phase (Jones 1998 in ibid). This momentum continues to
form until the migrant pool fail to reproduce itself, labour shortages follow in sending
communities, or recessions in receiving countries limit job access. During migration's decline (or
third stage of migration), socio-economic inequality increases once again as those migrants who
are successful continue to succeed and those community members who have failed fall further
behind economically (Reichert 1982;Rubenstein 1992 in Cohen, 2001).
2.3 Asking "why?" Labour Migration; Models of Rural Out Migration
For a long time social scientists have studied the movement of labour out of rural areas. Adam
Smiths’ The Wealth of Nations (1776) addresses migration. In industrial revolution England,
Ravenstein (1885) and Redford (1926, 1968) argued that a combination of Malthusian forces,
land scarcity, and enclosure—that is, “supply push” variables—drove rural-to-urban migration.
The classical model1 pointed to “demand-pull” variables, including the rapid development of
manufacturing that fed population growth and urban poverty in the early nineteenth century.
Conception of rural out-migration as solution to auxiliary labour and low earnings in agriculture
was renowned (Johnson, 1960). The economics of labour migration is more complex and a
global occurrence. This study will try to give its opinion in its attempt to come up with why
transnational labour migration from rural areas exists.
Labour migration according to Lewis (1954 in Taylor and Martin, 2001) is the product of the
supply and demand circulation between the rural agricultural economy (non-capitalist) and the
urban economy (capitalist). According to the dual economy concept, on the one hand, the urban
capitalist sector operates by hiring labour and selling output for a profit, and on the other hand
the rural agricultural non capitalist (or subsistence) sector does not use reproducible capital and
does not hire labour for a profit. At the outset, labour is concentrated in the non-capitalist sector
(Taylor and Martin, 2001).
As the capitalist sector expands, it buys out labour from the non-capitalist sector. “If the
capitalist economy is concentrated in the urban economy, labour transfer implies geographic
movement, i.e., rural-to-urban migration” (Taylor and Martin, 2001:4). At the international level,
the same relationship exists between the economy of developed country and less-developed
country i.e. the DCs have the role of the capitalist urban economy and the LDCs represent the
1
In the classical model, migration is demand-driven in the sense that the supply of farm labour to nonfarm jobs is
perfectly elastic (i.e., the supply curve is horizontal). Therefore, the movement of workers from farm to nonfarm
jobs results solely from outward shifts in the nonfarm labour-demand curve
non-capitalist rural economy. So rural urban migration at the international level implies
transnational labour migration from the LDCs to DCs. "A key testable hypothesis of the Lewis
model is that rural out-migration is not accompanied by a decrease in agricultural production
nor by a rise in either rural or urban wages" (ibid:5).
Regardless of its popularity for some modeling purposes, wage-driven neoclassical analysis of
rural out-migration has largely been discredited for a number of reasons like the empirical
observation that urban formal-sector wages are “sticky,” and migration tends to persist and even
accelerate in the face of high and rising urban unemployment in LDCs (Todaro, 1969 and 1980
in Taylor and Martin, 2001).
2.4 Labour Out migration and Rural Production
The starting point in theorizing the relationship between migration and community development
is the household itself. Lipton (1980) defines rural out migration as "the departure of individuals
or households, for more than a week or so, from the small, primarily agricultural community in
which they live". The movement of labour out of agriculture is a universal concomitant of
economic modernization and growth. Conventional migration models overlook many potential
interactions between migration and development. Given imperfect markets characterizing most
migrant-sending areas, migration and remittances can have far-reaching impacts, both positive
and negative, on incomes and production in agricultural households. Connections through
product and factor markets transmit impacts of migration from migrant-sending households to
others inside and outside the rural economy (Taylor and Martin, 2001).
In most cases, transnational labour migration is used as a synonym for labour migration from the
agricultural sector to non-agricultural sector in the global economy. The relocation of labour
geographically, out of rural areas, and occupationally, out of farm jobs, is one of the most
pervasive features of agricultural transformations and economic growth. This is true both
historically in developed countries (DCs) and currently in less-developed countries (LDCs). The
share of the national workforce in agriculture plunges even more sharply, from 90% or higher in
low-income countries to less than 10% in high-income countries (ibid).
International migration redistributes population and workforce from rural to urban and from lessdeveloped country to developed country. This redistributive characteristic of international labour
migration is reflected in many countries where agricultural production turns to foreign-born
migrants, frequently of rural origin for labour (Taylor and Martin, 2001). Another basic issue this
study looks at is the labour flow from less-developed countries, predominantly from rural part of
these countries and what impact or changes happen to the domestic economy and rural
production of the home community.
Lipton (1980) point out some independent variables that will affect the impact based relationship
between migration and rural production: "The ‘impact’ of migration depends on the numbers
involved, the duration of absence, the effect of both absence and possible return on migrants and
their home communities, and the concentration of migrants’ origins in a few places or
classes"(Lipton,1980: 1).
Agricultural practice in less-developed countries is more labour intensive than in developed
countries. Therefore, such a massive out migration of productive labour from the less developed
countries poses an enormous challenge for the domestic rural production. Despite this fact, many
studies are one sided and focus on the contribution of the human capital from less- developed
countries to the developed countries' economy. Less has been said about this same migration
wave impact on the sending community economy.
The questions of whether or not return migration would bring back balance to the labour market
and save the rural economy' and 'whether or not return migration can bring back the lost labour
force to the farm' are still much disputed among migration economists. Some empirical data
suggest that equilibration of the rural agricultural economy and the urban industrial sector
through return migration was unsuccessful (Lipton M. 1980).
“Most evidence, then, suggests a negative impact of rural emigration on rural
productivity and equality. Does the return of migrants reverse that negative impact?
There is some evidence in favour of this. However, there are several objections:
the tendency of return migrants to be the old, the sick and the unsuccessful; the
contradiction between equalizing effects and productive effects of return, and
(analogously) between external benefits and catalytic action from it; and the
frequent irrelevance to rural advance of the skills and attitudes acquired by
migrants during their absence” (Lipton M. 1980:13).
2.5 Historical Overview of International Migration in Ethiopia; a Country
Profile
Ethiopia is a poor country that has struggled with drought, famines, overpopulation, poverty, and
political instability. Ethiopia is a part of the “cradle of civilization‟ and is one of the few
countries to never have been colonized. This has not, however, prevented the country from
suffering ethnic conflict and political instability. "Today Ethiopia is officially a democratic
country, although in practice this would be disputed. The volatile politics and ethnic conflict
have contributed to poor governance which, combined with overpopulation and drought, have
led to devastating impacts for Ethiopians during the country's famines, resettlement programmes,
and political repression" (Fransen and Kuschminder, 2009: 5). Since labour migration is the
reflection of some of the current socio-economic and demographic tensions in the country this
section will provide a general overview of the current situation in Ethiopia by looking at the
current population and economic situation, the political situation, environment, natural disasters,
and food security, culture as well as the status of women.
2.5.1 Population and Economic Situation
Ethiopia is one of the most populous countries in Africa with a population of 83 million (US
Department of State, 2009). In 2006, 83.7% of the population were living in rural areas, and
16.3% were living in urban areas. In 2008, the population growth rate was 3.21%, which was the
11th highest in the world (CIA World Factbook).
Ethiopia is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 169 of 179 on the United Nations
Develop Program (UNDP) Human Development Index. The majority of the population is
involved in agriculture (80 %), which accounts for 46 % of GDP. The Ethiopian People's
Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPDRF) in 1991 nationalizes all of the land, and the average
plot of land worked per family is one hectare. The majority of land is used for self-sufficiency,
and the main cash crops for export are coffee, khat and cereals. The increasing population puts
further pressure on the land, making attainment of self-sufficiency more challenging. In addition,
only one percent of arable land is irrigated; thus, droughts have a devastating effect, which was
witnessed during Ethiopia's famines (Financial Standards Forum, 2009 in Fransen and
Kuschminder, 2009).
In the urban communities, there is high unemployment, estimated at 48 % for men between 15
and 30 years of age. Unemployment generally lasts for a number of years. This has led to the
growth of the informal economy, which the ILO estimates to account for 70-80 % of the
workforce (ibid).
2.5.2 Political Situation
Ethiopia is the only African country that was not a colony, with the exception of a brief Italian
invasion from 1936-41. Historically, emperors ruled the country, but in 1974 the last Emperor,
Haile Salisse, was overthrown by the military, which established a socialist rule known as the
Derg (committee). The Derg established totalitarian rule where civil liberties were limited. In
1991 the EPRDF, a coalition consisting of different ethnic groups, overthrew the Derg regime
(Fransen and Kuschminder, 2009). Beyound war and political issues, ecological factors are also
seen as drivers of population movements in the country (Berhanu & White, 2000; De Waal, 1991
in Fransen and Kuschminder, 2009). The government also played a large role in controlling
population movements, often out of security reasons (Bariagaber, 1999).
2.5.3 Culture and Ethnicity
There are over 80 different ethnic groups in Ethiopia. The largest is the Oromo (40 %), Amhara
(25 %), and Tigray (7 %). The most common religion is Sunni Muslim (45-50 %), Ethiopian
Orthodox Christian (40 %), and Protestant (5 %). The official language is Amharic, which is the
mother tongue of approximately 20 % of the population. Oromo is the most commonly spoken
language and has many different dialects (Bulcha, 1997 in Fransen and Kuschminder, 2009).
2.5.4 Status of Women
The ethnic groups of Ethiopia are traditionally patriarchal and are based on gendered role
division. In rural areas, women traditionally have the role in the household economy of engaging
in agricultural trade and domestic services (Pankhurst 1990, in Blerk, 2007). In the division of
labour in tasks such as cloth making, it is evident that women are allocated simple and repetitive
tasks (such as spinning) while the men do skilled tasks such as the weaving (ibid.).
Marriages are traditionally arranged to construct further community ties and to increase or
sustain the family's social status. The average national age of females at the time of marriage in
Ethiopia is 14 (Alemu, 2007, in Fransen and Kuschminder, 2009). Among the Amhara, in which
the study area is located, 48 % of rural women and 28 % of urban women were married before
the age of 15 (ibid).
Ethiopia's Gender Development Index (GDI) value is 0.403. This is 97.3 % of its Human
Development Index (HDI) (UNDP, 2009). The HDI does not speak for gender inequality, and
the GDI adds this component to the HDI. Ethiopia lines 133 in the world for its GDI. Such
indicators illustrate this as literacy; 50 % of adult males are literate compared to 22.8 % of adult
females (UNDP, 2009). The changing status of women is reflected later in this paper, as women
labour migration is at its climax in some part of the country. The labour migration has changed
some of the above stated figures about rural women at least at the community level in the study
area.
2.6 The Diaspora
Irregular and regular labour migrants from Ethiopia travel to a wide range of destinations.
“According to a detailed report by ILO in 2011, they journey in significant numbers to South
Africa through Moyale and Kenya; to Saudi Arabia through Bossaso and Yemen; to Saudi
Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) through Djibouti and Yemen; to Sudan through
Metema and on to Lebanon; Saudi Arabia and UAE through Bole International Airport; and to
Djibouti through the Afar region. Of course, the destinations listed here may represent primary
movement only. Migrants often move on to secondary and third locations in what is often a long
migration process, largely conducted irregularly and with the help of migrant smugglers”
(Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat, 2013: 33).
The migration from Ethiopia led to the creation of the Ethiopian Diaspora around the world.
Abye (2004 in Lyons, 2007) identifies four stages of the evolution of the Ethiopian Diaspora.
The first occurred before 1974 and was comprised primarily of elites. The second wave occurred
from 1974-1982, when people fled the Dergs’ Red Terror. The third wave occurred from 1982 to
1991 and was largely comprised of family reunification to the west. The fourth wave followed
post-1991 as people escaped ethnic violence and political repression.
2.6.1 The New Migration Wave
This study will demonstrate that the Ethiopian Diaspora wave has entered a new stage post 1999
largely comprised of semi or unskilled women labour drain as domestic workers to the Arab and
Gulf countries. During the last five years, this wave to the Arab and Gulf countries has shown a
tremendous increase in the out flow and the return socio-economic impact in the country. In
some part of the country, it even leads to formation of “a transnational community" i.e.
communities that transcend the socio-cultural boundaries of the surrounding community and
resemble the Arab or Gulf countries culture more so than the surrounding Ethiopian culture in so
many ways.
Unlike the pervious waves of migrants, the fifth wave is far more economically motivated i.e.
searching for jobs and less politically fueled. For this reason, they are less involved in the politics
of the sending country even though they are economically powerful. The fifth Diaspora wave is
different from the previous waves in its selective nature of ‘who can migrate and their
involvement in the home country’ so that it needs more migration network and impact analysis.
This paper will deal in detail with the fifth wave in the data analysis chapter.
The Ethiopian emigration patterns that were described in previous sections represent a
substantial outflow of human capital from the country. This might have a negative impact on
Ethiopia's development processes. There are positive consequences of emigration as well, such
as remittances and the return migration of Ethiopians with a productive skill and educational
training from abroad i.e. social remittances (Fransen and Kuschminder, 2009). For example, the
annually remitted money to Ethiopia by migrant domestic workers in the Arab countries is an
important source of foreign exchange for the country and equals or exceeds the dollars generated
by some exports and foreign tourism (Bariagaber, 1999).
Even though the net costs of emigration for migrant-sending countries is difficult to quantify,
many authors agree upon the fact that Ethiopia has suffered significantly from “brain drain‟, or
the out-migration of ‘highly-skilled’ Ethiopians over the years (Fransen and Kuschminder,
2009). Young Ethiopians often dream of a better future and leave their country in pursuit of this
dream. It is difficult for a poor country such as Ethiopia to create a stable and work-friendly
environment for ‘highly-skilled’ society members. This, together with swelling opportunities
elsewhere in the globalizing world, leads to drainage of skilled people (Reinert, 2006 in Fransen
and Kuschminder, 2009).
What has been over looked here in the discourse of the transnational migration impact in
Ethiopia is the most evident and recent fact that not only brain drain is affecting the country but
also transnational labour drain as it results in the buying out of labour force from the rural
agricultural sector. So far, transnational migration studies in Ethiopia have failed to address fully
the role of the labour drain positively or negatively in the highly labour intensive 2 traditional
agriculture system of the country, while the agriculture sector accounts for more than half of the
country's GDP. Chapter four of the paper talks about the basic connections between the
transnational labour drain and rural production in the case of South Wollo, Ethiopia from the
data collected.
2.7 Summary of the review
With all due respect for the works and contributions of migration economists and anthropologists
on the subject of the impact of remittances on the sending communities` socio-economic life,
there is lack of insight into other areas of the community life which have been affected by the
remittances. In this study, the environmental and social costs of massive labour drain from
agriculturally dependent rural communities are discussed from the data gathered during the field
work from different stakeholders in the study community.
This approach (the economic
remittance based impact analysis approach) overlooks the impact of the process of and the
precondition of labour drain on sending community and understands remittance most of the time
in its economic sense neglecting the social aspect. "Social remittances are the ideas, behaviors,
identities, and social capital that flow from receiving- to sending-country communities. The role
that these resources play in promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, community and family
formation, and political integration is widely acknowledged" (Levitt 1998: 926). Less attention
has been given to the socio-cultural, historical and political structure of sending communities in
shaping the impact of rural out migration.
2
Labour intensive is a process or industry that requires a large amount of labour to produce its goods or services.
The degree of labour intensity is typically measured in proportion to the amount of capital required. To produce
the goods/services; the higher the proportion of labour costs required, the more labour intensive the business
(investopedia.com).
In this study, since migration is a process through time and space (temporal and spatial), the
impact of labour migration is approached from three different time angles. The first one is the '
precondition effect' or the time before the migrant makes a successful arrival to the destination
community which includes the impact of the cause and the process of labour migration. The
second angle of time, from which this study build most of its analysis is the 'during effect' which
constitutes the time after the migrant reaches the host community that include the impact of the
physical absence of the migrants (loss of labour) from the community and the impact of the
remittance both social and economic. The last is the 'after effect ' and it covers the time after the
migrant returns to their sending community. The study refers to this time the impact of return
migration.
Migration induced migration
Sealing farmland and
animals to cover travel
cost
The
transnational
labour drain
Box 2
Minimum household
involvement in
agriculture
Loss of labour force
Social and economic
remittances
Change in the
material culture of
the households
Return migration
Box 1
Households stay in the rural
villages but with no or very
minimum and indirect
involvement in agriculture
Household dependency
on remittance and
involvement in other
non-agricultural
activities
Migration of the sending
household to the nearest
cities i.e. migration
induced migration
Source: Adem, Fieldwork (2012)
The above diagram shows how the transnational labour drain leads to the internal out migration
of households to the city from the sending community. The labour drain in the rural villages
induces the rural urban migration of households who have one or more family member migrate
to the Arab countries. The ‘temporal impact analysis model’ (TIAM) is used to demonstrate how
the migration-induced-migration is the product of the labour drain through time. Box 1 presents
the four direct changes that labour drain has brought to the rural households. From top to bottom,
they are arranged chronologically. Handing over farmland and animals like oxen and donkeys
that are the major part of the farming process is the first incidence that distances a household
from agriculture and thus from rural life. This what the TIAM refer to as “the precondition
impact” However, this handing over of farmland in particular is either through a contract for
some years or permanent sell.
Chart : The labour drain and other mobilities in the rural villages
Rural urban migration of
sending households
The labour drain
Source: Adem, Fieldwork (2012)
More labour migration
from the rural villages
‘reinforcing’
Occupational migration
from agriculture to nonagricultural business
Formation of “transnational community” or culture lag; Indicators of the
prevalence of labour drain in the rural villages
Throughout the past five to eight years, there has been a tremendous change in the totality of the
village life. It is obvious to feel shocked or amused by the rural villages life in the study area for
someone for anyone who knows traditional Ethiopian rural village life. One will for sure ask him
or herself “why is it not like other Ethiopian rural villages s?” and the common answer you will
receive is the rural villages s’ long history of transnational labour drain. It is not about
infrastructure, development in economic sense or education or health quality of life in the
villages that make it different from the rest. It is not also the way people think about or perceive
their surroundings that distinguishes the sending community from others. The material culture
makes it look like a former ‘Arab colony’. Language and some other non-material culture are
also under process of change or hybridization. In the long term, the rural villages will be an
island of a distinctively strange culture for the surrounding areas. These changes can also be used
as an indicator of the prevalence of the labour drain. communication technologies, food ,
dressing culture and demographic features are among the major indicators of the presence of
massice out migration in the rural villages.
Demographic structure
The reasons for change in population structure can be attributed to the natural increase i.e.
mortality and fertility rate and the migration. With the global-declining rate of fertility migration
play a huge role in the distribution of population both geographically and demographically (Qin
and Flint 2011). The impact of migration on demographic structure is in both destination and
departure points. Special type of migration like labour drain, where not only economically but
also demographically productive parts of the population move out from one community and
enter another community, will change demographic structure of both communities dramatically.
In the rural villages, the population’s age-sex structure and age-dependency ratio show this
dramatic change due to the labour migration to the Arab countries. Even other demographic
variables like age at marriage and maternity rates are changing due to the massive move out of
the rural women population. These demographic changes are unique and distinguishing features
of the rural sending community apart from other rural Ethiopian villages. Rural Ethiopian
villages, especially the northern highlanders where the study area is also located, are famous for
early marriage, a very young population and general high population growth due to high fertility
rate. However, Werebabo rural villages are suffering or experiencing aging of the population3.
The study make the balancing equation4 calculation based on the data from the district
population survey and observed a slight decrease in fertility rate, unchanged mortality and
3
A process in which the proportions of adults and elderly increase in a population, while the proportions of
children and adolescents decrease (http://www.prb.org).
4
A basic demographic formula used to estimate total population change between two points in time (ibid).
observed a high rate of out migration to the surrounding cities and to the Arab countries. It is still
too early to predict any demographic transition, but the decline in fertility will lead sometime in
the future to a historical demographic shift or depopulation in the rural villages.
The rural women are no longer as stable as they used to be to stay home and take care of
children; rather they are too mobile and have less interest in bearing children at the conventional
mother age. The District Women and Reproductive Health Officer during an interview
mentioned that the conventional age or age at first maternity experience was between 15 to 20
years old in the villages but now this has risen to 25 to 30. This has affected the rural maternal
fertility rate. Replacement–level fertility5 is also declining in the rural villages as an indicator of
couples’ high mobility. Marriage and divorce rate are the other demographic components that are
directly affected by the labour migration. There has been a decline in marriage rates and an
increase in divorce rates that makes families less productive. Due to the labour migration of the
rural women, the rate of remarriage is also rapidly decreasing. Demographically speaking there
is a change in nuptiality6.
The other impact of the labour drain on the rural demography is not the mere absence of the
young population but also the economic remittance. The remitted money makes rural households
to withdraw their dependency on the farmland that means the dependency has shift to somewhere
else. This somewhere else is the migrant who remitted the money. It makes the households
dependent on the migrant member of the family. The remaining productive members of the
family wait for the remitted money than going to the farm and produce. The remitted money
from the labour drain has increased the dependency ratio7 of the rural villages’ households by
making the economically productive population unproductive. However, this is not always the
case. Some has made meaningful investment from the remitted money and able to diversify the
household income and economic security.
Change in farming culture of the rural village
As mentioned in the beginning of this subchapter, not all rural sending households abandon
farming and enter another way of life; rather, a significant number of sending community
5
The level of fertility at which a couple has only enough children to replace themselves, or about two children per
couple (ibid).
6
The frequency, characteristics, and dissolution of marriages in a population (http://www.prb.org).
7
The ratio of the economically dependent part of the population to the productive part (ibid).
households practice agriculture. The massive labour force move out from agriculture to the Arab
countries and occupationally to other non-agricultural activity leads to emergence and or
strengthening of new farming trends in the rural village. Those sending household who decide to
keep on working on their farmland adopt methods that will compensate for the increasingly
declining labour supply.
Agricultural intensification
Farming practice in the rural village used to be known as labour-intensive much like the
surrounding Ethiopian highland farmers. The labuor drain by limiting labuor supply and
providing massive cash money to the rural production changed the labour-intensive to capitalintensive farming practice. In other word, the economic remittance leads to agricultural
intensification to some households. As stated above, the district bureau agrees that yes there is
agricultural intensification in the village. However, the office argues that this intensification is
not a mere outcome of the economic remittance; rather it is the availability of the agricultural
inputs though the bureau to the farmers. The argument made by development and dependency
theorists about economic remittances in chapter two comes alive between the farmers and the
agriculture bureau. The farmers’ argument side with the development theory saying the
remittance provides them with access to better agricultural practice while the agriculture bureau
sides with the dependency theory which claims that the economic remittances are destroying
farming practice and will cause rural environmental degradation in the near future. This study’s
stand suggests a more integrative outlook concerning remittance and agricultural practice by
including other social factors.
New forms of cooperation; communal farming
Apart from the intensification and passing over of farmland through temporary contract in the
rural village, some sending households stick to their farmland through adopting new forms of
cooperation with other farmers. The last part of the questionnaire distributed for the household
survey asks sending household what they are doing to adopt with the loss of labour force from
their agricultural activity. There are two social institutions growing and expanding in the villages
around the farmland. These two institutions are not something entirely new for the community
rather the lack of labour force put them at the center of the community life in the face of labour
migration.
1. ‘Wenfel’
The first form of communal farming in the village is ‘wenfel’. It is a form of informal
cooperation or community social labour-share groups where two or more farmers decides
to cultivate together turn by turn on their land on a fixed date. The farmers also share
their farm oxen. It is more voluntary in other part of the rural Ethiopia but here in the
rural village it become more formal and obligatory due to the labour shortage pressure.
Anyone in the community participates from a 'Nege-beine' (i.e. 'Tomorrow could be my
turn') feeling. All members of the group are given equal opportunity to utilize the labour
sharing, which goes turn by turn to all members. Therefore, it is initiated, planned by the
land users, and accepted by the group. This ‘wenfel’ is not something unique for the
sending community but it is practiced more than ever before and more intensively than
anywhere in the surrounding rural areas. This is directly and indirectly due to the impact
of labour migration out of the sending villages.
2. ‘Jigi’
The second form of social labour share group or institution that become very famous in
the sending community agricultural life is ‘jigi’. It is different from ‘wenfel’ in two ways.
It is more voluntary and commonly practiced among kin groups or neighboring farmers;
secondly, in ‘jigi’ there is no ‘turn by turn’ calculation; rather the owner of a land who
needs the labour force of other farmers will call for help on a fixed date and have to
prepare enough food and drinks for the participants.
The dilemma is that on the one hand, the labour migration leads to strengthening of social labour
sharing group in the sending community. On the other hand, the availability of cash money from
the remittance also endangers traditional social labour sharing groups. The remitted money leads
to, in some household, cases of hiring a labour worker or in other words, employing farmers.
There is a race between the traditional social labour sharing institution mentioned above and
employed farmers in the rural agricultural production. Who will prevail in the village? On the
other hand, are they going to be able co-exist in the rural agricultural practice as the labour drain
fosters both? This will need more in-depth look as it is beyond the scope of this paper.
3. Conclusion
In so many regards, the labour drain has become a leading social change agent fostering
development at the same time dependency in the rural villages of Werebabu. With a more
rigorous approach and intervention, the labour drain can serve as a means for better wellbeing
and advanced standard of living. The labour drain has brought new social orders and
institutions to the rural villages and opportunities for gender equality and empowerment. The
involved cultural lag or the race between the material culture and non-material culture remain
attractive to study the geneses of social change in human group. Transnational communities
are not the reality of the receiving country only. Transnationalism has also become the reality
of sending communities.
The study shows how much this rural sending community transcends the socio economic and
cultural boundaries and demographic features of the surrounding due to the labour migration.
Demographic features are deeply affected by the labour drain, which will lead to the
continuation of change in the rural life in so many aspects. As the American anthropologist,
George Murdock says, "family is the smallest but the building unit of any society" any change in
that small but building block of the society will change the entire social structure and relation of
authority in the society. Therefore, the premise is this pattern of mobility of rural women may
lead to shift from a strong patriarchal society to a more passive patriarchal or even matriarchal
society in the long run. In other words, the nature of authority relationship will be impacted by
mobility of women by changing their economic status and access to resources.
The labour migration has brought on a tremendous change around the rural production and
traditional agricultural practices. There is two version of this causation relation, on one side
enhancement of cooperation among households or emergency of new forms of social
cooperation. On the other side, there is a growing individualistic behavior and declining of
social institutions and reducing social cooperation in to monetary value. Both versions are going
on in the sending rural villages but at the end, only one has to prevail at the expense of the
other.
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