“Too poor to migrate”: A narrative of labor migration and land fragmentation in Uganda

Land fragmentation is a growing concern among smallholders in developing countries. As families grow and split off, per-capita land size declines significantly. Fragmented land holdings can have ramifications on agricultural production and labor migration. We investigate the relationship between land fragmentation and short-term labor migration using longitudinal household data from Uganda. We collate data from four periods of the Living Standard Measurement Study – Integrated Survey in Agriculture (LSMS-ISA) between 2013 and 2020. We use the two-way fixed effects estimator to estimate the effects of land fragmentation on migration. We find that land fragmentation is negatively correlated with labor migration. The relationship is more pronounced among rural, poor, and male-headed households compared to urban, rich, and female-headed households, respectively. We also conducted Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with members of smallholder families in Southwest Uganda to qualitatively confirm the empirical findings. Results show that the negative relationship between land fragmentation and labor migration is mediated by the negative impacts of fragmented holdings on agricultural productivity. Public policies and programs that focus on land redistribution or consolidation may want to pay close attention to the consequences of fragmented holdings on agricultural production and smallholders’ migration behavior. • Effects of land fragmentation on labor and non-labor migration in a smallholder system are studied. • Fragmented holding is negatively correlated with labor migration, but not with non-labor migration. • Empirical findings are confirmed qualitatively using focus group discussions with smallholders. • Liquidity constraint is a potential pathway for the negative effects on labor migration.