Social Security of the Returned Workers from Foreign Employment in Nepal (A Case Study of Yamkha VDC, Khotang District)

Abstract

Foreign Employment has become a major issue in the current economic and political discussion of Nepal. Many Nepalese people go foreign country to earn money .Remittance has become one of the major sources of livelihood. The most important issue is the issue of social security of the returned workers from foreign employment. The condition of people, who go abroad and return to Nepal, has been vividly changed. Before going abroad and earning money, people's economic status was not well. Because of which they did not invest as much as they wanted. After going abroad, they earned money but to invest their earnings there was not proper facility of social security. The environment suitable for them was needed. The expenditure in health, education, food, and cloths got increased. The life style also has been changed. Many people have invested in the field of agriculture, education, business, animal husbandry; land etc. All these sectors need security. The main objective of this research is to assess the social impact faced by those people who returned from foreign countries and invested in different social organizations and private sectors. It has also tried to explore the social background. In social background, the focus goes to the sex, age, religion, marital status, income sources, of the returned workers. More over it finds out the socio economic security related problem in their life by analyzing the trend of remittance received and used by them. Both exploratory and descriptive research method have become the research design of this study. The sample size, sampling, data collection, interview, focus group discussion, field visit, and observation were done. In sample, size and sampling the return workers were in total 138 from which 62 people were taken as a sample size. The data were collected by the help of primary sources like survey, interview, and secondary sources were taken by published and unpublished journals, books, theses etc. Questionnaire schedule was used to collect the necessary information from the respondents. The focus group discussion was made with the different group. All these activities were done by field visit and observation. The major finding of this research is taken from the return foreign employment of Yamkha VDC. First and fogo abroad and earn money and after getting back they want to invest in good sector. The population of youth workers remaining in Nepal was so low. It was because of foreign employment. The age group from 25-40 years had gone and returned from foreign employment. Most of the returned workers were male. 80.6 percent weremarried. Hindu people, who speak Nepali having agricultural occupation, had gone abroad .S.L.C and +2 level passed student workers from joint family had beenreturned .91.9 percent male used to take decision making in the family. The abroad workers 56.7 percent used to send money to their father, 25 percent to their wife and 5.0 percent to mother .The medium of sending money were bank and hundi. 26.7 percent and 23.3 percent respectively quarter had been the main destination for them to go and earn money .The percentage of the workers going Quarter was 32.8 and going Korea was 1.6 .People used to go abroad with the help of agency(27.5 percent) manpower ,individual effort ,relative ,and it was the medium to go abroad too. The relationship before going and coming from abroad has been better than earlier .The people had earned up to 1 lakh which is 30.7 percent. 56.5 percent of the workers earned one lakh to 5 lakhs. The workers who earned above 5 lakh were 12.9percent .The main problems of Nepali workers in foreign employment were language (33.9percent) lack of training (25.8 percent) ,low salary (19.4percent ). The main expenditure sector of returned workers were buying land (43.69percent), housing 28.35percent), education (8.42), health (7.98 percent), food and clothes (6.85) amount of debit (5.71 percent). According to the returned workers, agriculture income is not sufficient (67.8) for their family's livelihood for a whole year. It has become compulsion for the people of yamkha VDC Khotang to go abroad .Their income in Nepal hardly fulfils their needs because of this reason they go abroad to earned money. If they earn they can invest in different sectors. After returning from foreign employment the condition of education, health, and agriculturehas been improved than before. For general security a police post has been established in the VDC .Though some security facility are their it is not proper security for their property, investment, health, land and education. The lack of road, electricity, good colleges, hospitals have added problems in their security.