The proposed research explores interrelationships between migration, contraceptive choice, and social networks using a unique set of social surveys collected in Nang Rong, Thailand. Social networks- i.e., sets of relations between individuals, households, and communities -are key to the dissemination of information and diffusion processes more generally. They are also fundamental to an understanding of norms, normative pressure, and conformity. The proposed research will shed light on these mechanisms by investigating: (a) social networks in the place of origin and the likelihood of finding and successfully interviewing out-migrants; (b) the implications of social networks at the origin and connections between the origin and destination for the amount, composition, and directionality of remittance flows; (c) the effect of social network position on contraceptive choice. Comparisons of kin-based networks with networks based on economic assistance and exchange, and of networks at multiple levels of analysis will make it possible to draw some inferences about the relative importance of normative pressure and information flow in accounting for effects. Further, in contrast to literatures preoccupied with migration and fertility as outcomes, the proposed research will also consider them as potential determinants of social network position and the overall structure of social networks. The proposed research will use data collected in 1984, 1994 and 1995 as part of the Nang Rong CEP and CEP-CPC Surveys. Innovative elements of the data include the prospective panel design; 100 percent samples of households and individuals within study villages; the follow-up of out-migrants from a subset of villages and the ability to link them to origin households; and complete social network data at multiple levels and for multiple relations. The last will be used to develop quantitative measures of network position(centrality, path length, component membership) and structure (density, average path length, prevalence of isolates, number of components) which will be featured in regression-based statistical models of the likelihood of finding out-migrants; the composition, amount and directionality of remittance flows between them and the origin households; and contraceptive choices made by migrants, return migrants, and non-migrants. Measures of network position will be the focus of models investigating the effects of household size and change for the ties with other households in villages. Prosposed statistical techniques take account of selectivity and patterns of clustering
| Rindfuss, Ronald R; Piotrowski, Martin; Entwisle, Barbara et al. (2012) Migrant remittances and the web of family obligations: ongoing support among spatially extended kin in North-east Thailand, 1984-94. Popul Stud (Camb) 66:87-104 |
| Edmeades, Jeffrey (2008) The legacies of context: past and present influences on contraceptive choice in Nang Rong, Thailand. Demography 45:283-302 |
