Abstract
In this chapter, I examine the relationship between regime change and migration. I use my individual household questionnaires from 1987, 1994, and 2013 to analyse population movements at the household level in Zeepinwea Village, where I have conducted long-term research. While population mobility was very high in the delta region of Myanmar during the colonial period, I have shown that frequent population movements continued during the socialist period, despite restrictions on people changing their place of residence (Takahashi, 1997, p. 22). This chapter describes how villagers moved under the market-economy system that came about after the demise of the socialist system. I show how migration is another aspect of the process of de-agrarianisation.
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Notes
- 1.
Households with low incomes lived in inexpensive houses that could be built for about 15 days’ wages, with roofs thatched with leaves of nipa palms and other palm plants, walls enclosed with the same leaves or with bamboo, and floors made of bamboo, except for a few wooden posts, which could be dismantled and transported on ox carts. People often built such houses on unoccupied land in the village, and were able to obtain similar land at low cost in their destination village, too.
- 2.
The area of Hlegu Township is about 1789 square kilometres. Hlegu Town, which bordered Zeepinwea Village, was the township seat, but nonetheless a rural town with a small urban area. However, in the 2000s, a residential area was built and workers commuting to the foreign-capital factories in the Yangon suburbs began to live there.
- 3.
As in the case of the out-migrant households, Takahashi (1997) categorised the in-migrant households by listing their occupations before and after moving into Zeepinwea Village, their previous residence, their reason for moving into the village, and the ages of the householders and their spouses. However, my 2014 survey was a sampling survey of households that were already living in the village in 1994, so the same analysis cannot be conducted. Therefore, I use the village mayor’s and secretary’s information. By asking the village mayor and secretary about the previous residences and occupations of all households moving into the village, I obtained the source villages and occupational changes of all households that moved into Zeepinwea Village after 1994. In addition, I interviewed 15 households out of the 69 households that had entered the village individually about their timing of migration, purpose, occupation, family structure, and changes in income.
- 4.
Two households “vanished” between 1987 and 1994, and another two households between 1994 and 2013, respectively. Namely, in 1987–1994, one elderly person who lived alone died—and thus that person’s household vanished—and one young couple and their two children died of an epidemic. In 1994–2013, two elderly persons who lived alone died.
- 5.
It should be noted that I did not follow the households that left the village to their current addresses in 1994, but only interviewed the village mayors, village secretaries, and relatives and acquaintances of these households. However, with the exception of one peddler household and two fisherman households, their relatives were still living in the village, so there is not a large margin of error with respect to the matters described in this book. The same is true for my 2014 survey.
- 6.
For a history of the rise and fall of the U Kala family, see Takahashi (2018: 88–94).
- 7.
In this chapter, “away from” or “separated” means separating one’s livelihood or dividing one’s household from that of one’s parents—regardless of one’s place of residence inside or outside the village. In contrast, the term “move out” is used only when a person who is “separated from” a parental household moves out of the village.
- 8.
For the definition of “non-agricultural household”, see footnote 2 in Chap. 3.
- 9.
In Table 6.7, the total number of out-migration includes “In Hlegu Township (T/S)”, “Out of Hlegu T/S” and to “Yangon city”.
- 10.
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Takahashi, A. (2023). Villagers on the Move: Mixed Multi-ethnic Settlement in Zeepinwea Village. In: Regime Changes and Socio-economic History of Rural Myanmar, 1986-2019. Studies in Economic History. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-3272-6_6
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