Seasonal migration and micro-credit in the lean period : evidence from northwest Bangladesh

This paper investigates the relationship between access to micro-credit and temporary seasonal migration, an issue which is largely ignored in the standard rural-urban migration literature. Seasonal migration due to agricultural downturns is a common phenomenon in developing countries. Using primary data from a cross-sectional household survey from the northwest part of Bangladesh, this study quantifies the factors that influence such migration decisions. Among other results, we find that network effects play a significant role in influencing the migration decision, with the presence of kinsmen at the place of destination having considerable impact. Seasonal migration is a natural choice for individual suffering periodic hardship; however the strict weekly loan repayment rules of Micro-credit Institutes can have an adverse effect on this process, reducing the ability of borrowers to react to a shock. Our result suggests that poor individuals prefer the option of not accessing the micro-credit and opt for temporal seasonal migration during the lean period. The results have numerous potential policy implications, including the design of typical micro-credit schemes.

Structural Changes and Formation of Rusta-shahr in Post-Revolutionary Rural Society in Iran

The following paper is based on the author's two-year research and fieldwork in Iran and examines the process of political and social changes since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the subsequent impact of the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. This paper focuses on the transition of traditional, small villages into rusta-shahr or small rural cities and the first and second nation-wide elections of shoura or councils which were the first steps toward self-government. The author is guardedly optimistic regarding this democratic process but warns of possible future social unrest if changes are not more "balanced" between cities and rural areas and if the employment needs of the burgeoning younger generation are not met, political and social consequences may be catastrophic.

Issues Affecting the Movement of Rural Labour in Myanmar: Rakhine Case Study

This paper presents issues affecting the movement of rural labour in Myanmar, by examining the background, purpose and earned income of labourers migrating to fishing villages in southern Rakhine. A broad range of socioeconomic classes, from poor to rich, farmers to fishermen, is migrating from broader areas to specific labour-intensive fishing subsectors, such as anchovy fishing. These labourers are a mixed group of people whose motives lie either in supplementing their household income or accumulating capital for further expansion of their economic activities. The concentration of migrating labourers with different objectives in this particular unstable, unskilled employment opportunity suggests an insufficiently developed domestic labour market in rural Myanmar. There is a pressing need to create stable labour-intensive industries to meet this demand.

Restoration of micro data of John Lossing Buck's survey and analysis of the inverse relationship between yield and farm size in rural China in the 1930's

A large scale Chinese agricultural survey was conducted at the direction of John Lossing Buck from 1929 through 1933. At the end of the 1990’s, some parts of the original micro data of Buck’s survey were discovered at Nanjing Agricultural University. An international joint study was begun to restore micro data of Buck’s survey and construct parts of the micro database on both the crop yield survey and special expenditure survey. This paper includes a summary of the characteristics of farmlands and cropping patterns in crop yield micro data that covered 2,102 farmers in 20 counties of 9 provinces. In order to test the classical hypothesis of whether or not an inverse relationship between land productivity and cultivated area may be observed in developing countries, a Box-Cox transformation test was conducted for functional forms on five main crops of Buck’s crop yield survey. The result of the test shows that the relationship between land productivity and cultivated areas of wheat and barley is linear and somewhat negative; those of rice, rapeseed, and seed cotton appear to be slightly positive. It can be tentatively concluded that the relationship between cultivated area and land productivity are not the same among crops, and the difference of labor intensity and the level of commercialization of each crop may be strongly related to the existence or non-existence of inverse relationships.

The determinants of rural electrification in Bihar, India

This paper explores intra-state disparity in access to electricity and examines the determinants of electrification at the village level in Bihar, one of the underdeveloped states in India. Our field survey of 80 villages in 5 districts conducted in 2008-09 found that 48 villages (60%) are electrified when using the definition of electrification that a village is electrified if any one household in the village is connected to electricity. The degrees of “electrification” in terms of the proportion of household connection and available hours of electricity remain by and large low, and at the same time differ across districts, villages and seasons. In the processes of electrification, approximately 40% of villages have been electrified in recent years. Based on the basic findings of the survey, this paper examines the electrification processes and how it has changed in recent years. The econometric analyses demonstrate that location is the most important determinant of a village’s electricity connection. Another important finding is that with the rapid progress of rural electrificationunder the recent government programme and the tendency to connect the villages which are easily accessible, the collective bargaining power of the village, which used to significantly affect the process of electrification, has lost influence. This adversely affects remote villages. In order to extend electricity supplies to remote and geographically disadvantaged villages, the government needs to consider seriously other options for sustainable electricity supply, such as decentralized distribution of electricity rather than the conventional connection through the national/local grids.

Preliminary discussions on the urbanization of rural areas in modern Iran

In this translation draft of the first part of the author's recently-published book in Japanese, entitled as "Rural-cities in Contemporary Iran: Revolution, War and the Structural Changes in the Rural Society," we are presenting the preliminary discussions on Iranian middle-sized cities and towns which emerged in these 30 years or so. We start from the explanations of the contents of the above-mentioned book and do the reviewing of the preceding studies, followed by the critical review of the studies on the Iranian revolution in 1979, and the studies on Iran's recent political trends and the tendencies towards the local governance, which was tempered and collapsed with the appearance of President Ahmadīnejād. This consists of the Introduction and the first parts of Chapter 1 of our book, and we are expecting to finish translating the whole contents and to publish it in the near future. We apologize for the shortcomings of this paper, for example some partial lack of correspondence of its bibliography with the main contents, mainly because of the technical reasons.

Progress and issues in rural electrification in Bihar, India : a preliminary analysis

Rural electrification has been an important part of government policy since India gained independence. However, despite the number of electrified villages expanding rapidly in recent years, there are many that still remain un-electrified. This paper addresses the issue of intra-state disparity in access to electricity and examines the determinants of electrification at the village level using data from a survey conducted in rural Bihar, one of the underdeveloped states in India. An econometric analysis demonstrates that small villages in remote locations tend to be considered a low priority in the process of electrification. Electrification at the village level in the more advanced states is no longer an issue, though the challenge of access to electrification at the household level remains. This paper also discusses issues that emerged from interviewing villagers and visiting rural areas, and shows that the actual progress of rural electrification may not be as advanced as government statistics indicate.

Fertility and rural electrification in Bangladesh

We use a panel dataset from Bangladesh to examine the relationship between fertility and the adoption of electricity with the latter instrumented by infrastructure development and the quality of service delivery. We find that the adoption of electricity reduces fertility, and this impact is more pronounced when the household already has two or more children. This observation can be explained by a simple household model of time use, in which adoption of electricity affects only the optimal number of children but not necessarily current fertility behavior if the optimal number has not yet been reached.

Returns to migration : the role of educational attainment in rural Tanzania

Given the migration premium previously identified in an impact evaluation approach, this paper asks the question of why migration is not more prominent, given such high premium associated with it. Using long-term household panel data drawn from rural Tanzania, Kagera for the period 1991-2004, this study aims to answer this question by exploring the contribution of education in the migration premium. By separating migrants into those that moved out of original villages but remained within Kagera and those who left the region, this study finds that, in consumption, the return on investment in education is higher at both destinations. However, whilst the higher return on education fully explains the gains associated with migration within Kagera, it only partly explains those of external migration. These findings suggest that welfare opportunities are higher at the destination and that an individual's limited investment in education plays a major role in preventing short-distance migration from becoming a significant source of raising welfare, which is not the case for long-distance migration. While education plays a role, it appears that other mechanisms may prohibit rural agents from exploiting the arbitrage opportunity when they migrate to the destination at a great distance from the source.

Housing the Rangoon poor : Indians, Burmese, and town planning in colonial Burma

In Rangoon/Yangon, the ex-capital city of Burma/Myanmar, there still remain many old buildings today. Those buildings were constructed in the British colonial period, especially from the 1900s to the 1930s, and formed Rangoon's built environment as something modern. In focusing on the period before and after the inauguration of the Rangoon Development Trust in 1921, this paper describes how the colonial administrative authorities perceived urban problems and how their policy and practice affected urban society. It also suggests the possibility that competition for habitation among the lower strata of Rangoon society was a cause of the serious urban riot in 1930.