Land and landlessness among rural-to-rural migrants in Nepal's Terai region.

"Nepal has been experiencing a permanent rural-to-rural migration of households from the central hill zone to the Terai region. Migrant households, due to the structure of the Terai economy, are impelled to acquire control of land for subsistence agriculture by squatting, purchasing, or receiving a grant. A household's ability to maximize subsistence opportunities is partly a function of the means by which land is acquired and whether land is acquired at all. Factors which determine the chances of acquiring land reflect the role of institutional rigidities such as the distribution of wealth and the caste structure, state-imposed land reform policies, and such household characteristics as family size and risk aversion. A multinomial logit model is used to empirically assess the importance of these elements in the outcomes of migrant households' resource acquisition decisions." excerpt