When leaving is normal and staying is novel: Men's labor migration and women's employment in rural Mozambique

Long-term Consequences of Men's Migration for Women's Well-being in a Rural African Setting

Labor migration is a massive global reality, and its effects on the well-being of nonmigrating household members vary considerably. However, much existing research is limited to cross-sectional or short-term assessments of these effects. This study uses unique longitudinal panel data collected over 12 years in rural Mozambique to examine long-term connections of women's exposure to husband's labor migration with women's material security, their perception of their households' relative economic standing in the community, their overall life satisfaction, and their expectations of future improvements in household conditions. To capture the cumulative quality of such exposure, we use two approaches: one based on migrant remittances ("objective") and the other based on woman's own assessment of migration's impact on the household ("subjective"). The multivariable analyses detect a significant positive association between "objective" migration quality and household assets, regardless of women's current marital status and other characteristics. However, net of household assets, "objective" quality shows a positive association with life satisfaction, but not with perceived relative standing of the household or future expectations. In comparison, "subjective" quality is positively associated with all the outcomes even after controlling for other characteristics. These findings illustrate the gendered complexities of long-term migration impact on nonmigrants' well-being.

Labour migration and food security in rural Mozambique: Do agricultural investment, asset building and local employment matter?

Connections between labour migration and food security of left-behind households are still poorly understood. Using data from two waves of a longitudinal survey conducted among ever-married women in rural Mozambique, we employ multi-level ordered logit and negative binomial regressions to examine over time three possible pathways linking men's migration and its economic success to food security of left-behind households-agricultural investment, household material assets and women's local gainful employment. Our analyses find a significant positive association between migration's success, proxied by remittances, and food security and show that this association is largely mediated by household's possession of material assets.

The COVID-19 Pandemic, Social Ties, and Psychosocial Well-Being of Middle-Aged Women in Rural Africa

The study contributes to the understanding of the societal impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the Global South by examining longer term implications of pandemic-induced disruptions and deprivations for social ties and psychosocial well-being. Using data from a survey of middle-aged women in rural Mozambique, the author finds a negative association between the pandemic-triggered household economic decline and perceived changes in the quality of relations with marital partners, non-coresident children, and relatives, but not with generally more distant actors, such as coreligionists and neighbors. In turn, multivariable analyses detect a positive association of changes in the quality of family and kin ties with participants' life satisfaction, regardless of other factors. Yet women's expectations for changes in their household living conditions in the near future show a significant association only with changes in the quality of relations with marital partners. The author situates these findings within the context of women's enduring vulnerabilities in low-income patriarchal settings.