Impact of Male Out Migration on Rural Women and Their Coping Strategies in North Karnataka

Abstract

Male migration within the country and more particularly from rural areas takes place newlinein search of better livelihood opportunities especially during droughts and other natural newlinecalamities. Often men from rural areas migrate leaving behind women and children. The newlinepresent study attempts to know the impact of male out-migration on rural women and their newlinecoping strategies. The study was carried out in drought hit Bagalkot, Vijayapura, Dharwad, newlineGadag and Haveri districts of North Karnataka. The purposive random sampling technique newlinewas followed to select the blocks and villages from which a sample of 200 respondents were newlineselected. Wives of the migrants were interviewed personally by using a structured interview newlineschedule and result were analyzed by suitable statistical tools. All migrants in the study newlinemigrated from rural to urban areas, 51.50 per cent were temporary migrants and 48.50 per newlinecent were seasonal migrants. Natural disasters and low agricultural productivity ranked I and II newlineamong agricultural causes for male out-migration, while getting regular income and to repay newlineloans and advances were raked I and II economic causes. The social causes were, caste newlinediscrimination (I) and improving family status (II). The socio-personal problems reported newlinewere, increased work burden and difficulty in taking household decisions. Lack of timely newlineremittance was the major economic problem. Feeling loneliness due to absence of husband newlinewas the major psychological problem. Coping strategies adopted to overcome emotional and newlinemental problems were: sharing feelings with friends and family (82.00%) and participating in newlinesocial activities (80.00%). To overcome financial problems 75.00 per cent women took short newlineterm loans from banks and Self Help Group, while 66.00 per cent women purchased low newlinequality cheap food. Social problems were overcome by keeping in touch with relatives newline(70.50%) and neighbours (49.00%). newline