Abstract
This paper investigates how the attributes of a household such as socioeconomic, demographic and institutional access shape outmigration decisions of family members in a rural economic setting. We used primary data from householdlevel interviews ( = 400) conducted at two community development blocks in each of four districts of Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR), an autonomous council situated in Assam in India’s northeast region. A total of 24 villages were randomly chosen by employing a two-stage cluster sampling technique for household-level interviews. We estimated an econometric model to understand the effects of socioeconomic and demographic variables on the migration responses of the family members. A logistic regression model was used to determine the odds ratios of independent variables. The odds ratio of an independent variable explains its effect on outmigration decision of a household. Findings reveal that a family member with a higher level of educational attainment positively affects outmigration decision within the family. Findings also reveal that there is statistically significant negative relationship between outmigration and landholding which implies that family members of poor households possess higher propensity of migration to destinations compared to family members of land-rich households. Apart from landholding, other economic characteristics of a household also trigger its outmigration decision. Overall, this paper provides contemporary ground-level insights into the status of households and labour migration in BTR.
Keywords: Bodoland Territorial Region, Household, Landholding, Outmigration.