PART II CASE-STUDY: GUINEA-BISSAU
8. Village-level case-study II: Braima Sori
8.7 Migration and its effects
There is no doubt that migration plays a very important role in Braima Sori. The figures presented in Table 8.9 are elucidating: 72% of the households (26/36) currently participate in migration; almost as many (70%, or 25/36) currently participate in international migration; and 44% include a current member who was once a migrant.
Yes No Yes (%)
Households with current migrants173 away 26 10 72.2%
Households with current migrants abroad 25 11 69.4%
Households with current migrants in Europe 20 16 55.6%
Households with economically-active (or student-worker) migrants
18 18 50.0%
Households with return migrants 16 20 44.4%
Households with return migrants from abroad
11 25 30.6%
Households with return migrants from Europe
6 30 16.7%
Table 8.9 Braima Sori: Household participation in migration - basic indicators
Based on the results of the survey, the current migrant population can be estimated at around 221 (Table 8.1), which amounts to saying that the total resident population of Braima Sori would increase by one seventh if all current migrants were to return at once.
This is a lower figure than that put forth by Có (2004), who mentions more than two hundred migrants in Europe alone – a difference that may be partly accounted for by the different estimation methods that were used174, but which is mostly due to the fact that there has been a significant amount of return migration in the last few years as a consequence of the impact of the economic crisis upon the public works and construction sectors in Portugal. Whatever the case, however, it is clear that migration remains a very widespread practice.
The geographical breakdown of the current places of residence of the migrants (Figures 8.13 and 8.14) provides additional information on the features of migration from Braima Sori. Just over half of the migrants currently reside somewhere else in Guinea- Bissau: of these, 40% live in Bissau, 30% reside somewhere else in the Gabu region (most
173 For details on the criteria adopted in the definition of migrants and return migrants, see Chapter 5 above.
174 Có’s (2004) figure was not based on a systematic estimation, nor did it purport to be – this author put forth the overall estimation conveyed to him at the time by the residents of Braima Sori whom he interviewed. The estimation put forth here is based on the extrapolation of the results of the household survey.
265 often in the city of Gabu itself) and 18% live in the neighbouring region of Bafatá. Among the 48% who are international migrants, Portugal is clearly the predominant destination (accounting for 70% of all international migrants), with Senegal a distant second (17% of international migrants). Other international destinations, both in Africa and in Europe, appear with residual weight.
Figure 8.13 Braima Sori: Distribution of current migrants by country of current residence
Figure 8.14 Braima Sori: Distribution of current migrants residing elsewhere in Guinea-Bissau by region
The survey data also show that migration from Braima Sori is predominantly a male matter: out of 77 reported migrants, only 18 are female (Table 8.10). Males are especially over-represented in international migration: 34 out of 37 international migrants reported by the respondents are male.
266 Current place of residence
Total Guinea-
Bissau
Senegal Portugal Other country in Africa
Other country in Europe
Sex Male 25 6 23 3 2 59
Female 15 0 3 0 0 18
Total 40 6 26 3 2 77
Table 8.10 Braima Sori: Cross-tabulation of the migrants’ gender with their current place of residence, absolute frequencies occurring in the sample
The gender profile of the migrants is one of the features of Braima Sori migration that clearly sets it apart from Caiomete. Another one is the age characteristics of the migrants (Figure 8.15): although the median age of the migrants from Braima Sori is relatively young (26 years of age), the distribution is less concentrated in the young adult cohorts than is the case in Caiomete. In fact, as many as ẳ of the migrants identified in the survey are between the ages of 37 and 60.
Figure 8.15 Braima Sori: Current age of the migrants as reported by the respondents, boxplot
Figure 8.15 is consistent with a succession of consecutive cohorts of migrants, whereby younger migrants continue to migrate (or at least did so until very recently), while many of the older migrants, who migrated longer ago, have not (yet) returned. Figure 8.16, which shows the distribution of the year of the migrants’ original departure from the village, corroborates this picture: about half of the migrants left after 2005, but as many as one quarter did so before 1997.
267 Figure 8.16 Braima Sori: Current migrants’ year of departure from the village, boxplot
We are now in a position to bring these conclusions together with some of the qualitative data in order to put forth a simple typology of migration profiles from Braima Sori. The overwhelming significance of Portugal as a destination for international migration from Braima Sori can be traced back to the 1980s, when the first local resident, who had served in the colonial army, migrated to Portugal. He was followed by a handful of friends and relatives, eventually giving rise to the emergence of a sustained migration chain between Braima Sori and the former metropolis175. Each consecutive wave of migrants actively provided support to the ones that followed by advancing money for the plane fares and visas, providing accommodation and assisting in finding work. The vast majority of these migrants took up jobs in the Portuguese public works and construction sectors, which experienced a boom from the late 1980s onwards largely due to the inflow of EU (then EEC) funds.
The above is reflected in Tables 8.11 and 8.12, which cross-tabulate the migrants’
place of residence with their socio-professional status and occupations. Among other things, these tables show that 21 out of the 26 migrants in the sample who are currently residing in Portugal work in the construction sector. Recently, some former migrants to Portugal (possibly as many as one hundred in total, according to some of my interviewees) returned
175 At about the same time as the first pioneer of migration to Portugal, another resident of Braima Sori initiated a migratory process that would take him to over ten different countries in West and Central Africa, where he took up a number of different jobs. He would subsequently return without having initiated a migration chain, however.
268 to the village as a consequence of the contraction in the Portuguese labour market.
However, many seemingly regard this as a temporary break before heading back to Europe again once the labour market there recovers176.
Student
Economically
Active "Housewife"
Child
(Under 6) Prisoner Total
Guinea-Bissau 13 14 6 7 0 40
Senegal 5 1 0 0 0 6
Portugal 2 22 1 0 1 26
Other country in Africa
1 2 0 0 0 3
Other country in Europe
0 2 0 0 0 2
Total 21 41 7 7 1 77
Table 8.11 Braima Sori: Cross-tabulation of the migrants’ current place of residence with their socio-professional status, absolute frequencies occurring in the sample
176 By and large, international migrants from Braima Sori have entered Portugal through regular channels, under business, tourist or long-term visas, and eventually acquired permanent residents’
permits which allow them to travel back and forth at will between the two countries.
269 Unemployed177 Construction Commerce
Primary sector
Other
unskilled DNK/DNA Total Guinea-
Bissau 0 0 9 5 0 0 14
Senegal 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
Portugal 0 21 1 0 0 0 22
Other country
in Africa 1 0 0 0 0 1 1
Other country
in
Europe 1 0 0 0 1 0 2
Total 2 21 11 5 1 1 41
Table 8.12 Braima Sori: Cross-tabulation of the economically active migrants’ current place of residence with their occupations, absolute frequencies occurring in the sample
Tables 8.11 and 8.12 make it possible to identify three additional main ‘categories’
of migrants originating in Braima Sori. The first one consists of economically active migrants residing elsewhere in Guinea-Bissau (most often in Bissau or Gabu), who work as merchants or employees in the context of commercial ventures – a pattern that is clearly associated with long-standing Fula trading networks and merchant activities. The second type consists of student migrants: some of these are the offspring of older migrants who migrated along with their parents, but others migrated on their own. For example, all but one (5/6) of the migrants reported to be currently living in Senegal are students (specifically, Koranic students in Senegalese madrassas). Still, most student migrants captured in the sample (13/21) live elsewhere in Guinea-Bissau: eight in Bissau, five in Gabu. Finally, the third category consists of migrant households that relocated to a different location in rural Guinea-Bissau, while generally adopting the same livelihood strategies. As a consequence of the respondents’ gender-biased answers to the survey, these latter migrants show up either as male primary sector workers living elsewhere in Guinea-Bissau in Table 8.12 or as female “housewives” residing in Guinea-Bissau in Table 8.11.
177 Insofar as the information with respect to these migrants is conveyed indirectly by other people in their households of origin, it is likely that the prevalence of unemployment has been considerably underestimated. Typically, the respondents would indicate what each migrant’s usual occupation was, regardless of whether s/he was in employment at the moment. These specific figures should therefore be taken with caution.
270 Above all else, however, we are interested in what impact migration has had in terms of development, and that is what the remaining part of this section elaborates on.
The first thing to be noted is that the vast majority of these migrants maintain very significant linkages with the village, as suggested by how much time has passed since their last visit: whereas half of the migrants originally initiated their migratory process prior to 2005, a full ắ of them last visited the village either in 2008 or after that (Figure 8.17). Even the migrants who reside in Portugal, who ‘on average’ have been away since 1998, also ‘on average’ last visited the village in 2008.
Figure 8.17 Braima Sori: Year of current migrants’ last visit to the village as of May 2010, boxplot
Given the high degree of relational proximity between the migrants and their households of origin in Braima Sori, along with the fact that international migration is very widespread and most often undertaken by males who left their dependent households behind, it is not surprising that remittances are a very common practice. 22 out of the 26 households that currently participate in migration report having received money remittances in the previous twelve months. Moreover, almost 50% of all the migrants over the age of 15 are reported to have sent at least some money during the course of the previous year (Table 8.13).
271 Sent money in
the previous 12 months
Did not send money in the previous 12 months
Not applicable (under 15)
Total
Guinea-Bissau 6 21 13 40
Senegal 1 2 3 6
Portugal 20 6 0 26
Other country in Africa
1 2 0 3
Other country in Europe
2 0 0 2
Total 30 31 16 77
Table 8.13 Braima Sori: Cross-tabulation of the migrants’ current place of residence with their remittance behaviour in the previous 12 months, absolute frequencies occurring in the sample
This being said, remittance behaviour is, as might be expected, dependent upon the socioprofessional status and occupation of the migrants, which in turn correlates with their place of residence. Thus, we find that the internal migrants who live elsewhere in Guinea- Bissau (many of whom are either students or ‘rural’ family migrants) are much less likely to remit, whereas migrants residing in Portugal (most of whom are employed in the construction sector, earn relatively high wages and have dependent relatives back in Braima Sori) remit in very high numbers. In fact, the same applies to remittances ‘in kind’, which in the overwhelming majority of cases consist of clothing, shoes and cell phones: 23 out of the 26 adult migrants who reside in Portugal are reported to have sent material help other than money in the previous twelve months, compared to only 9 out of the 26 adult migrants who live somewhere else in Guinea-Bissau.
In spite of these geographical patterns, however, it remains true that remittances are a very widespread practice, not least because they benefit the vast majority of the 70%
of households in Braima Sori that currently participate in international migration. As we have seen (Table 8.8), remittances are also positively associated with long-run household wealth, as proxied by the asset index score: remittance-recipient households have a mean asset index score of 0.98, compared to 0.70 for non-recipient households. Given that 85%
of migrant households reported receiving remittances in the previous 12 months (that is to say, the two sub-sets of households – migrant households and remittance-recipient households – largely coincide), it is not surprising that the mean asset index score among migrant households (0.92) is just slightly inferior to that among remittance-recipients.
Even more impressive is the effect of past migration upon long-run household wealth. In any context, this effect can be presumed a priori to be greater than that of
272 current migration, given that the constraining effect of migration upon the household’s pool of labour has been alleviated following the return of the migrants and that the full cycle of migration, with its associated remittances and return with accumulated savings, has been seen through to completion. In Braima Sori, this effect is very clear: households that include former migrants as current members have a mean asset index score of 1.18, compared to 0.62 among those households that include no such members. And if we look only at households containing former international migrants, or former migrants to Europe, the figures are even more impressive: 1.42 and 1.52, respectively. Thus, there is absolutely no doubt that participation in migration exerts a very important positive effect upon household long-run wealth, and largely accounts for the significant amount of wealth differentiation that we have seen to exist.
In view of the above, it is not surprising that a full 100% of the respondents stated that migration has had a “positive” impact upon the village as a whole, and 86% (31/36) argued that the impact upon their own households has been positive as well. This is especially true in the case of the households that, at one time or another, participated in intercontinental migration. Indeed, the streams of income that these migrants accessed upon arriving in Portugal was something completely unlike anything they had ever had access to, and made it possible to access a range of consumer goods that was previously inaccessible. As one of the respondents put it, “before migration, many of us only ate one meal a day, and we did not have any door locks or zinc roofs in our houses; nowadays, most people live in good houses, many own gold ornaments and TVs and some have even stopped working in the fields”.
One of the aspects in which the impact of migration has been most remarkable is the extent to which the associated income has made it possible to finance the hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca) by many village elders. According to the participants in the focus group, while only a handful of people from the village had made that pilgrimage before the onset of mass migration, perhaps as many as one hundred have become hajjis over the last two decades. One of the respondents – a former migrant – even mentioned that, at a certain stage, “a veritable competition ensued between the migrants form Braima Sori in Portugal as to who would first pay for our fathers’ trips to Mecca”. Significantly, the same former migrant mentioned that “we did not really know what to do with the money, so many of us spent it on nightlife and paying for our elders’ trips to Mecca. We thought that it would last forever, so we did not really bother to invest in agriculture back in the village.”
273 Indeed, there is ample qualitative evidence that a high share of the income derived from migration has been used to finance current consumption, sometimes of a conspicuous kind. In some cases, the income from migration even had a displacement effect upon production: as we have already mentioned, two of the 26 migrant households included in the sample explicitly reported living exclusively off the money remittances sent to them by their migrant relatives and having withdrawn from production of any kind. Moreover, some of the return migrants who were interviewed, who had recently returned to the village following a period of unemployment in Europe, explicitly regretted not having used the money that they had earned while away in ways that would now enhance their agricultural output and income.
Every single one of the 22 respondents who reported having received money remittances in the previous twelve months stated that some of the money had been used to pay for food expenses, but only three reported using the money to hire workers (and none mentioned any other form of capital investment) in the previous year. When we compare the recourse to the hiring-in of labour by remittance-recipient and non-recipient households (Table 8.14), we find that remittances are indeed associated with a slightly greater incidence of hiring-in in the previous year (67% compared to 53%). However, this does not seem to consist of hiring in the context of expanded accumulation: as is visible in Table 8.15, the average output of groundnuts on the part of remittance-recipient households, despite the additional recourse to hired labour, is less than that among non- recipient households (and just slightly larger in the case of cashew nuts). The implication seems clear: those migrant households that have not withdrawn from agricultural production altogether typically draw on a smaller pool of labour within the household itself and, for that reason, exhibit a slightly greater likelihood of hiring paid workers as
‘replacements’; however, this barely compensates the effect of the reduction in the labour pool upon the output of cashew nuts, and not at all in the case of groundnuts.
274 Hiring-in of agricultural labour
Total
No Yes
Not applicable (no agricultural
production) Remittance-recipient
household
No 7 6 1 14
Yes 8 12 2 22
Total 15 18 3 36
Table 8.14 Braima Sori: Cross-tabulation of the households’ remittance-recipient status with their recourse to paid agricultural labour in the previous twelve months, absolute frequencies occurring
in the sample
Remittance- recipient HH Y/N
Groundnuts (Kgs)
Cashew nuts (Kgs)
Rice (Kgs)
Maize (Kgs)
Millet (Kgs)
Cassava (Kgs)
No Mean 325,7 120,1 38,2 146,7 126,2 41,7
N 13 9 5 3 9 3
Yes Mean 225,9 169,0 102,5 87,5 72,1 38,7
N 20 16 3 4 12 6
Total Mean 265,3 151,4 62,3 112,9 95,3 39,7
N 33 25 8 7 21 9
Table 8.15 Braima Sori: Comparison of the mean output per adult of various cash and food crops as of the last agricultural cycle among remittance-recipient and non-recipient households
On the other hand, we find that past participation in migration, especially of the intercontinental kind, is associated with an upgrading of farm production. The average size of the herds owned by the households that comprise return migrants from Europe is more than twice as large as the average in the village as a whole, and the mean cashew nut and groundnut outputs as of the last agricultural cycle are almost twice as large, too (Table 8.16). This reflects the fact that, despite the fact that some return migrants regret not having invested more in agriculture while they were away, we still find that the level of ownership of agricultural tools among households with return migrants is higher than average (Table 8.17). It also reflects a somewhat greater incidence of the hiring-in of agricultural labour amongst those households that comprise former migrants, especially intercontinental ones (Table 8.18). The differences in this latter crucial respect are somewhat limited, but the cases of the few wealthier proto-bourgeois households for whom upwards social mobility drew both on their merchant activities in Guinea-Bissau and