A study on emigration and capability expansion of left behind muslim women in Kerala

Abstract

Migration refers to the movement of people from one location to another, either temporarily or permanently. People emigrating in search of jobs had an impact on both the migrants’ and the state's socio-economic lives and consequently, migration is a multifaceted process. The oil shock of the 1970s in the Gulf countries, coupled with rising unemployment rates in Kerala, triggered substantial migration from the state to the Gulf region. In the past, religious orthodoxy among the Muslim community in Malabar, particularly in the Malappuram district, limited women's access to education and employment opportunities, thereby restricting their freedom and well-being. However, female perceptions have changed in response to changing needs and situations, in which migration and remittances brought in by migrants from abroad have a significant role. When the male migrates, the left-behind women have to undertake increased responsibilities that were unfamiliar to them, which influences the women's access and freedom of opportunity and improves their control over household resources, mobility and decision-making power. The utilisation of opportunities for left-behind women in the context of husbands’ migration is measured in terms of the Capability Approach. The study is concentrated in the Malappuram district in Kerala, as the district has the largest number of emigrants and the greatest proportion of foreign remittances among the districts in Kerala, since the first Kerala Migration Survey report of 1998. Multi-stage random sampling technique is applied to collect the primary data and the sample size is fixed as 423 based on the Kerala Migration Survey 2018. In connection with evaluating the effect of male migration upon left-behind Muslim women, the Women’s Capability Index was constructed by selecting the relevant capability dimensions of women affected by the research environment. The Ordinal Logistic Regression model is suitable for data analysis considering the Women’s Capability Index as the ordinal and categorical dependent variable and the duration of the migration and the remittances that the migrants send to the family as the major independent variables. The study found that the migration duration is statistically insignificant whereas the foreign remittances have a statisticallysignificant effect on the expansion of the capabilities of the left-behind Muslim women in the study area. To assess the factors contributing to the capability expansion of left-behind Muslim women in the study area, the Exploratory Factor Analysis with Principal Component Analysis was used. Eight factors with 36 sub-dimensions were identified based on the reviews of the previous studies and survey experiences of the pilot study. The result highlights that among the factors, migration and foreign remittances, availability of social infrastructure of Banking and Transport facilities exhibit higher factor loading (>0.08) indicating these factors are most influential among the factors contributing to the capability expansion of left-behind Muslim women in the study area. Moreover, the association of the factors with the women’s capability indices shows that the factors are the major determinants of the capability of left-behind Muslim women in the study area. The study also assesses the role of capability expansion of left-behind Muslim women in their socio-economic participation by applying the Structural Equation Model. The parameter estimate shows that for every one unit increase in the Women’s Capability Index, economic participation is expected to increase by 0.23 units and social participation is expected to increase by 0.31 units, holding other factors constant. Hence it is concluded that the expansion of left-behind women’s capabilities has a positive statistically significant moderate effect on their socio-economic participation, demonstrating that when the left-behind women utilise the opportunities created due to their husbands’ migration, their capabilities expand, which will enhance their socio-economic participation. Hence the study highlights that male migration and foreign remittances they send to their households have positive effects on the capability expansion of left- behind Muslim women in the Malappuram district. The recent scenario of left- behind Muslim women in the Malappuram district enabled them to realise the benefits of socio-economic and political participation owing to increased educational opportunities and financial support from abroad.