The health of left-behind wives using the social determinants of health framework: the other side of Nepalese regulated labour migration

Abstract

In the last twenty years at least one million Nepalese men have travelled to the Gulf States in a government process of regulated labour migration. This involves men being away from home for decades and impacts on at least five million family members in Nepal. Although Nepal relies on remittances from this migration for 23 percent of its Gross Domestic Product, the literature has not explored the health and welfare of the wives who are left behind in this process. This research addresses the other side of regulated Nepalese labour migration because: 1) it focuses on the left-behind wives; and 2) it is concerned with their health using the social determinants of health approach. Capitalism and globalisation have combined to produce a labour supply chain of unskilled and semi-skilled workers from developing countries to increase the wealth in developed countries. Because of poverty, lack of employment opportunities and intra-national conflict in Nepal, migration for work has been taken up by desperate rural men. Nepal is a patriarchal society and the left-behind wives are often subordinate, ill-prepared, and vulnerable in the migration process and its consequences. This research seeks to understand the subjective experience of being left behind from the perspective of the wives. This research explores: the lived experiences of the left-behind wives of the Nepalese migrants to the Gulf States; the impacts of this migration from the perspective of the wives using a social determinants of health framework; and the social support services available and useful to the left-behind wives.