Cash transfers, migration, and gender norms

Abstract

Although migration remains crucial for economic development, financial constraints may limit individual ability to migrate. A recent literature demonstrates that social protection programs encourage migration; however, how norms shape the migration decision of women and men are rarely considered. Analysis of 2209 panel households (2014)(2015)(2016) in Mali suggests that men predominantly move for employment, whereas women move to rural areas for marriage and urban areas for employment. We then test, in the context of a large-scale randomized controlled trial, how a cash transfer (CT) program in Mali affects the migration patterns of men and women. We find the probability of rural-rural migration among men in beneficiary households increases by 0.9 percentage points (an effect size of 100%), whereas the probability of rural-urban migration among women decreases by 0.2 percentage points (an effect size of 50%). We find no impacts on average women's rural-rural migration or men's rural-urban migration. However, women in less poor beneficiary households are more likely to engage in rural-rural migration as a result of the CT, whereas women in poorer beneficiary households realize no immediate impact. Our findings indicate that the provision of cash potentially fosters investment in profitable endeavors outside of subsistence agriculture for men but may also affect the marital migration of women.We thank three anonymous referees and editor Marc Bellemare for their insightful comments while the manuscript was under review. The manuscript also benefitted from the excellent research assistance of Sayahnika Basu, Bianca Navia, and Qing Zhong.

Productive Workfare? Evidence from Ethiopia's Productive Safety Net Program

“…Fourth, at a local level, the program could be accompanied by movements of labor out of agriculture, so that overall output remains constant, but output per person increases (Bhargava, 2021; Deininger et al, 2016; Imbert & Papp, 2015). Fifth, at a broader level, public works and transfer programs can affect migration patterns and thereby the availability of labor for agriculture (Gazeaud et al, 2021; Hidrobo et al, 2021; Imbert & Papp, 2020).…”

The land use consequences of rural to urban migration*

“…First, the labor loss from rural outmigration may directly constrain households in their ability to maintain or expand the cropping area (Angelsen et al, 2020; Zwane, 2007). In addition to the direct labor losses, there may be shifts in the labor composition and the task allocations within households (Hidrobo et al, 2022), with additional consequence for land use. Through the labor channel, we therefore hypothesize that: Rural outmigration leads to agricultural contraction or reduced expansion . …”