Field and river

20th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES20)
Mekelle University, Ethiopia

"Regional and Global Ethiopia - Interconnections and Identities"
1-5 October, 2018

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THE NEXUS BETWEEN TRANSNATIONAL LABOR MIGRATION, POPULATION DYNAMICS AND THE RURAL ENVIRONMENT; THE CASE OF WOREBABO WOREDA SOUTH WOLLO ZONE [Abstract ID: 1002-02]

SALEH Seid Adem, Arba Minch University, Ethiopia

Most studies on international labor migration have focused on the causes and socio economic status of migrants in the receiving society. This paper focuses on transnational labor drain as an agent of change in the lives of the sending communities and the environment. It focuses on the less well-studied sending side of the migration band. This paper looks at the migrants’ home community population dynamics (i.e. social life) and analyzes how the division of labor, divorce rate, gender relation, material culture and rural production are being affected or conditioned by a highly selective labor drain to Arab Countries and the environmental responses to it. This impact relationship between the migrants and their home areas operate through the preconditions of migration, social and economic remittances and the loss of the most productive part of the rural population. The migration-induced migration i.e. transnational migration causing a rural-urban wave among sending households in the rural sending community is another crucial issue this paper brings to the table of migration dialogue. The paper also seeks to explore the causes and indicators of the transnational labor drain in the rural community. The impact of out-migration on the rural areas is highlighted through survey and archival data, observations, qualitative interviews and biographical sketches of affected households. A temporal impact analysis model (TIAM) is developed and used to capture the multi-temporal and dimensional aspect of the impact of out-migration on the rural sending communities.