Impact of occupational migration of unskilled labourer from domestic agriculture on farm business income in source households of Assam, India

PurposeThe present study aims at examining the determinants of occupational migration of unskilled labourer from domestic agriculture and their impact on farm business income (FBI) in Assam, India.Design/methodology/approachPrimary data for this study were collected during June–November, 2019 from 224 farm (cultivator) households in two contiguous districts in central Brahmaputra valley of Assam. The study used three-stage least square (3SLS) estimation technique for jointly determining the factors influencing migration and remittances and their impact on FBI.FindingsThe result of this study confirms that occupational migration of unskilled labourer from domestic agriculture significantly reduced household FBI. In contrast to the inflow of remittances from migrants helped in increasing the FBI. The migration in the study area considerably influenced by household size, total value of assets holding, networking influence, distance to commercial bank and flood proneness of the village; while the number of migrants, number of dependents and age of migrants seen to be strong predictor of inflow of remittances. Findings of present study offer evidence in support of the new economics of labour migration (NELM) theory.Research limitations/implicationsThe study is restricted to a single crop (paddy) and constrained by the collection of longitudinal data with a revisit to the farm household pre and post-migration of the unskilled labourer from household agriculture.Originality/valueThis paper is based on a novel data set that has especially been collected to examine the determinants of occupational migration from agriculture and their impact on the FBI in Assam that has not been studied before.

AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY OF MALNUTRITION AMONG UNDER FIVE CHILDREN LIVING IN PREDOMINANTLY TRIBAL BLOCK OF JHADOL IN DISTRICT UDAIPUR, RAJASTHAN

To determine the prevalence and risk factors of under-nutrition amongst under-five children living in Jhadol Block of Udaipur, a cross-sectional survey of 350 randomly selected under-five children was carried out. The selected samples were taken out of the total 48426 children living in Jhadol Block. The findings reveal that 41.1% of the children were found to be stunted, 26% of them wasted and 20.3% of them were under-weight. Female children, children aged 48-59 months, children born to older mothers aged 20-29years, children with 1-2 siblings, low-birth-weight, having an illiterate mother or unskilled labourer father were observed to be at the highest risk of being under-nourished. Birth spacing of <2 years, incomplete vaccination status, frequent infections and worm infestation were also found to be important predisposing factors for childhood malnutrition. The study demonstrates the multiple risk factors for childhood malnutrition, requiring a multi-pronged and multi-sectorial approach in the fight against the silent killer of childhood malnutrition.

Inequality in Chile before the first globalization: an approach derived from agricultural market income, 1830s-1850s

This article assesses agricultural market income inequality by examining three untapped comprehensive agricultural censuses of all of Chile, undertaken in 1834, 1838 and 1852. Since there had been no Chilean income inequality measurements prior to 1860, this is a novel contribution. Given Chile’s great dependence on the agricultural sector during the pre-industrial period of the 1830s to 1850s, measures of agricultural market income inequality can safely be taken as a proxy for total income inequality. This study found that agricultural market income inequality was extremely high during the first decades after Chilean independence. Gini coefficients for agricultural market income among landowners were 0.75, 0.75 and 0.79 for 1834, 1838 and 1852 respectively, while the figures for the entire rural Chilean population, including the landless, were 0.79, 0.87, and 0.89. Around 85% of the population did not own any land and for an unskilled labourer to rent a plot of 1,500 hectares in 1834 cost 3.3 years of wages, and annual wages of 11.3 in 1838. In a conclusion that is at odds with previous historiographical findings, our data suggest that inequality in Chile was very high and had begun to increase decades before the first globalization.

The Nature of Mother’s Employment on Nurturing Campus Persistence among Undergraduate Students

Objective: The study aims to empirically test the relationship between types of campus adaptations across students’ mothers’ level of nature of occupation among engineering undergraduate B. Tech students pursuing a four-year study at Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT’s) and National Institutes of Technology (NIT’s) in India.Method: The Multivariate Analysis of Variance (Manova) test was run with SPSS vs. 21 to compare the student’s campus adaptations of IIT’s and NIT’s by students’ mothers’ level of occupation. Multistage random sampling with n = 1420 students were selected comprising of employed at government (n = 172), employed at private (n =141), own a business (n = 71) employed as unskilled labourer (n = 10), farmer (n = 10), retired from government service or pensioner (n = 06), not alive (n = 03), unemployed (n = 107).Result: In the academic adaptation, students’ mothers’ who were employed by the government, owned a business, employed as unskilled labourer and pursued farming had positive outcome while students’ whose mothers’ were employed at private, retired from government service, not alive and unemployed had negative outcomes. In social adaptation students’ whose mothers’ were employed by the government, owned a business, retired from government service and unemployed had positive outcomes while students’ whose mothers’ were employed at private, employed as an unskilled labourer, pursued farming and not alive had negative outcomes. In physical - psychological adaptation, students’ mothers’ who owned a business, not alive and unemployed had positive outcomes while student’s mothers’ employed at the government, employed at private, employed as an unskilled labourer, pursued farming and retired from government service had negative outcomes. In the institutional adaptation, students’ mothers’ employed at the government, employed at private own a business, employed as an unskilled labourer, retired from government service and not alive had positive outcomes and students whose mothers’ were farmers and unemployed had negative outcomes.Conclusion: Campus adaptations do vary across student’s mother’s level of occupation influencing student’s experiences at IIT’s and NIT’s.