IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/ajaees/389021.html

Agrarian Change, Migration, and Livelihood Diversification in Rural Tamil Nadu

Author

Listed:
  • Nimcya, A.
  • Muniandi, Jegadeesan

Abstract

This study examines the dynamics of agrarian change and livelihood diversification in Semboothi, a village located in the Ponnamaravathi block of Pudukottai district, Tamil Nadu. Drawing on primary data from a detailed household survey covering 100 households (462 individuals) across six caste groups, the research investigates the intersection of caste, migration, education, and occupational shifts within a transforming rural economy. The study reveals that the rural economy is undergoing a significant transformation marked by the declining viability of agriculture, a sharp rise in non-farm employment, and increasing dependence on migration. While agriculture remains symbolically important, only 73% of households own land, with average holdings of 1.67 acres and limited irrigation access—factors that contribute to agrarian distress and push even landowning castes towards alternative livelihoods. Caste continues to strongly mediate access to land, education, and mobility. Scheduled Caste (SC) and Muslim households, historically excluded from agrarian privilege, now report higher average per capita incomes (₹63,731 and ₹70,800 respectively) than some dominant castes, driven by greater integration into urban labor markets and higher educational attainment. Intergenerational data show marked improvements in education among SCs and intermediary castes like Konars, while groups like Ambalakarars and Maravars display stagnation or decline. Migration, particularly among SC, Konar, and Maravar households, has emerged as a central strategy for livelihood security: migrant households earn 55.6% more on average than non-migrants, with the highest gains recorded among SCs (101.1%) and Maravars (154.5%). Even among landowning households, 27.4% reported sending members for migrant work due to declining returns from farming. Occupational diversification is evident across caste lines, yet remains stratified; while some move into skilled urban jobs or overseas employment, others remain confined to low-paying informal labor. The study concludes that while Semboothi's rural transformation offers new avenues of mobility—particularly through education and migration—these gains are uneven and mediated by caste, land, and access to infrastructure, reinforcing the need for targeted, caste-sensitive policy interventions to ensure inclusive rural development.

Suggested Citation

  • Nimcya, A. & Muniandi, Jegadeesan, 2025. "Agrarian Change, Migration, and Livelihood Diversification in Rural Tamil Nadu," Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology, Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology, vol. 43(5).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ajaees:389021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/389021/files/Muniandi4352025AJAEES136001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arunachalam, R. & Arunachalam, A. & Aarthi, S., 2024. "Climate Change Impacts on the Livelihood of North Eastern Zone Tribes of Tamil Nadu, India," Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology, Asian Journal of Agricultural Extension, Economics & Sociology, vol. 42(2), pages 1-9.
    2. Susanto Kumar Beero, 2024. "Irrigation Development and Rural Migration Nexus: Insights from Village Studies in Tamil Nadu," India Studies in Business and Economics, in: Arup Mitra (ed.), Youth in Indian Labour Market, pages 215-227, Springer.
    3. Reddy, D. Narasimha & Mishra, Srijit (ed.), 2010. "Agrarian Crisis in India," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198069096.
    4. Breman, Jan, 2013. "At Work in the Informal Economy of India: A Perspective from the Bottom Up," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198090342.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. S. Mahendra Dev, 2018. "Inequality, Employment and Public Policy," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 61(1), pages 1-42, March.
    2. Smriti Rao & Smita Ramnarain, 2023. "Gender, Social Protection, and Crises of Social Reproduction: Contextualizing NREGA," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 70-92, March.
    3. Nitesh Shukla & Arup Das & Tarak Nath Mazumder, 2025. "Complexities of urban resilience in the global south: key insights from Surat city, India," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 30(6), pages 1-26, August.
    4. Abha Gupta & Deepak K. Mishra, 2013. "Poverty And Calorie Deprivation Across Socio-Economic Groups In Rural India: A Disaggregated Analysis," Journal of Regional Development and Planning, Rajarshi Majumder, vol. 2(1), pages 15-33.
    5. Bhanot, Disha & Farias, Vivek & Sinha, Deeksha, 2025. "Interest subvention for crop loans in India: Win-win or win-lose ?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 371-393.
    6. Crelis F Rammelt & Maggi Leung & Kebede Manjur Gebru, 2018. "The Exclusive Nature of Inclusive Productive Employment in the Rural Areas of Northern Ethiopia," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 32(6), pages 1044-1060, December.
    7. A. R. Vasavi, 2019. "The Displaced Threshing Yard: Involutions of the Rural," Review of Development and Change, , vol. 24(1), pages 31-54, June.
    8. Rolph van der Hoeven, 2018. "Employment and development in Asia," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-107, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Arnaud Kaba & Shankare Gowda, 2021. "Of glass, skills and life: Craft consciousness among Firozabad’s glassworkers," Working Papers hal-03206522, HAL.
    10. Amrita Chhachhi & Amrita Chhachhi, 2014. "Introduction: The ‘Labour Question’ in Contemporary Capitalism," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(5), pages 895-919, September.
    11. Sanjeev Routray, 2022. "‘Timepass’ and ‘setting’: The meanings, relationships and politics of urban informal work in Delhi," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(10), pages 1981-1997, August.
    12. Sumangala Damodaran, 2015. "The Chimera of Inclusive Growth: Informality, Poverty and Inequality in India in the Post-Reform Period," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 46(5), pages 1213-1224, September.
    13. Amrita Datta & S. Irudaya Rajan, 2024. "Internal Migration and Development in India," Indian Journal of Human Development, , vol. 18(1), pages 7-19, April.
    14. Gindo Tampubolan & Maria Fajarini, 2017. "A double-edged sword: technology, prosperity and inequality," Global Development Institute Working Paper Series 142017, GDI, The University of Manchester.
    15. Kasturi Sadhu & Saumya Chakrabarti, 2021. "Neo-Dualism: Accumulation, Distress, and Proliferation of a Fissured Informality," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(4), pages 694-724, December.
    16. Nivedita Jayaram & Divya Varma, 2020. "Examining the ‘Labour’ in Labour Migration: Migrant Workers’ Informal Work Arrangements and Access to Labour Rights in Urban Sectors," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(4), pages 999-1019, December.
    17. Christoph Scherrer, 2018. "The Disrupted Passage from an Agrarian Rural to an Industrial Urban Workforce in Most Countries in the Global South," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 7(3), pages 301-319, December.
    18. Alessandra Mezzadri, 2016. "The informalization of capital and interlocking in labour contracting networks," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 16(2), pages 124-139, April.
    19. Sirisha C. Naidu & Lyn Ossome, 2018. "Work, Gender, and Immiseration in South Africa and India," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 50(2), pages 332-348, June.
    20. Alessandra Mezzadri, 2022. "The Social Reproduction of Pandemic Surplus Populations and Global Development Narratives on Inequality and Informal Labour," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 53(6), pages 1230-1253, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ajaees:389021. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journalajaees.com/index.php/AJAEES/index .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.