Causes and Effects of Foreign Employment (A study of returned Migrants of kohabara Vdc of jhapa District)

Abstract

Literally, migration refers to phenomena and the process of moving of people from one placeto another, such as crossing intra or international geographical boundaries. Demographicaland sociological studies of migration are diverse and usually form part of larger problems in(for example) research into kinship, social networks or economics development. The motivefor migration includes political, economics, social and environmental causes, which arebased on different reasons. The migration forforeign labour has a long history in Nepal. It started even before the firstNepali men traveled to Lahore in the early 19 v th century to join the Indian army andevenbefore the recruitment of the first Nepalese to the British 'Gurkhas' in 1815/16.After India'sindependence (1947AD.), both Britain and India have made separate arrangements forcontinuity of Gorkha recruitment. The migration of youth for foreign employment rapidlyincreasedespecially after the restoration ofmultiparty democracy (B.S. 2046) and inductionof liberalization policy. With the enactment of Foreign Employment Act, 1985 Nepalese started to migrate beyondIndia particularly to the Gulf (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, etc.) where oil boom hascreated massive demand for foreign labour. Similarly, in February 2001, the Malaysiangovernment officially "opened" its labour market to Nepali workers. This study is about foreign employment to different countries of the world. It is a known factthat Nepali labour migrants are scattered around the world and many of them are in India. Itis estimated that the number of Nepalese migrants are working 'Overseas', meaning beyondIndia that accounts 700,000. About five percent (35,000) of these are women. At leastanother 700,000 work in the private sector in India, and 2, 50,000 in India's public sector. This micro level study on Cause and Effect of Foreign Employment', is confined to KohabaraVillageDevelopment Committee of Jhapa district in Eastern Development Region of Nepal.The main objective of this study is to describe the causes and socio-economic effects of theforeign employment of the study area. The study comprises 75 returned emigrants workersrepresenting all wards of the VDC and different caste and ethnic groups. All the emigrantsfound to be male. The majority of the people in the village do not have sufficient land, despite being farmer, asa main source of earning the livelihood. All the represented households are engaging insubsistence farming. Foreign employment of labour migration has been an importantoccupation among males in the village to maintain the household. Remittance is used forimmediate food and other household requirements, pay debt, buy new lands and houses. There are various push and pull factors for foreign employment. In recent years, the volume(trend) of labour migration has increased due to increasing population pressure,unemployment and prevailing political conflict.