Remittances, Consumption and Housing

Research record

Chapter 120 examined migration as a labour-market system. This chapter turns to what happens after earnings move back toward the household. Remittances are neither a single-purpose transfer nor a transparent measure of prosperity. A payment received from Delhi, Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra, the Gulf or another destination may be used in the same month for grain, school fees, medicine, a loan instalment and bricks. The analytical task is therefore to reconstruct allocation over time rather than force every rupee into a rigid consumption-versus-investment category. The evidence for Mithila, Vajji and Anga is uneven. Longitudinal research in rural Bihar repeatedly found remittances central to migrant-household budgets, with food consumption, debt clearance, health and education preceding or accompanying asset creation. The Household Consumption Expenditure Survey 2023–24 provides a much newer Bihar consumption baseline—average monthly per-capita consumption expenditure of Rs 3,670 in rural Bihar and Rs 5,080 in urban Bihar—but it is not a remittance-use survey and should not be read as one. On the Nepal side, the Nepal Living Standards Survey IV 2022/23 provides a stronger direct remittance benchmark: 79.1 per cent of Madhesh households received remittances, while national tabulations show daily consumption as the dominant reported use. These figures are dated survey results, not permanent characteristics. Housing deserves separate treatment because it is simultaneously shelter, durable asset, social signal, collateral-like wealth and a source of local demand. Migration-financed construction can improve safety and amenities, but it can also lock cash into a low-liquidity asset, intensify land-price competition or produce large houses with few working-age residents. The chapter therefore examines consumption smoothing, debt, education, health, savings, durables, ceremonies, land and housing as parts of one household portfolio, then asks how those choices affect inequality and the local economy.

Section index

1. 121.1 Remittances as a household financial institution
2. 121.2 Measurement: amount, frequency and sender
3. 121.3 Dated evidence from rural Bihar
4. 121.4 Madhesh Province in the Nepal Living Standards Survey IV
5. 121.5 Consumption smoothing and food security
6. 121.6 Debt repayment before visible accumulation
7. 121.7 Health expenditure and shock protection
8. 121.8 Education as household investment
9. 121.9 Ceremonies, kinship and social obligations
10. 121.10 Savings, bank accounts and liquidity
11. 121.11 Durable goods and domestic comfort
12. 121.12 Mobile phones, connectivity and financial transfer
13. 121.13 Farm inputs and mixed livelihood portfolios
14. 121.14 Livestock, tools and small productive assets
15. 121.15 Enterprise formation and its limits
16. 121.16 Land purchase and land-price effects
17. 121.17 Why housing becomes a preferred asset
18. 121.18 Repair, extension and incremental construction
19. 121.19 Pucca construction and material transitions
20. 121.20 Water, sanitation, electricity and appliances
21. 121.21 Housing as status and migrant biography
22. 121.22 Empty houses and the paradox of absence
23. 121.23 Construction multipliers in village and small-town economies
24. 121.24 Gendered control over remittance use
25. 121.25 Caste, class and unequal ability to convert migration into assets
26. 121.26 Consumption inequality and local price effects
27. 121.27 Public housing schemes and private remittance finance
28. 121.28 Crisis periods: return migration and household buffers
29. 121.29 Better evidence for remittance-led change
30. 121.30 From dependence to household resilience

Cite this record

Gajendra Thakur. “Remittances, Consumption and Housing.” Videha Digital Research Archive: Mithila–Vajji–Anga. Videha — https://www.videha.co.in/ · ISSN 2229-547X · GitHub mirror: https://videha-ejournal.github.io/videha/ · Digital Research Archives on GitHub: https://github.com/videha-ejournal. https://videha-ejournal.github.io/mithila-vajji-anga/records/history/social-121/