Current Versus Past Migration: Which Matters More for Migration in Nepal?

This project will examine how different measures of migration exposure within households and communities impact individual’s probability of out-migration from those contexts, using data from the Chitwan Valley Family Study (CVFS) in Nepal. Particularly, I will focus on how present exposure to out- and return-migration within these contexts matters, as opposed to accumulated or historical migration exposure. Empirical studies of migrant networks and migration social capital have thus far primarily focused on accumulated social capital, whereby the experience of past migrants is equally weighted with the experience of current migrants. While advances have been made in understanding the accessibility of this social capital and potential for translation of this capital across trans-local contexts, such as through assessing the number of migration trips (and thus contact with the origin context), studies have largely failed to incorporate the recentness of migration experience in differentiating migration social capital. As migration is a dynamic process, changing origins and destinations with its occurrence, distinguishing between migration social capital from the past and present (especially as conditions in destinations change overtime) helps advance a better understanding of how potential migrants in origin contexts react to more recent migration information, and extends theories on migration social capital and networks, especially the diffusion of migration within contexts through the quality (or recentness) of information.