The Effect of Premarital Migration on Land Inheritance:The Case of Ever-married Childre n from Cambodian Rural Villages

In recent years, an increasing number of unmarried children have migrated from the rural areas of Cambodia to seek work, which may initiate changes to the customary partible land inheritance system.The data of ever-married children from five villages were analyzed.The results indicated that children' s premarital migration experience negatively impacts land inheritance to a measurable extent, though indirectly, by increasing the chance of provincial exogamy, which is negatively correlated with land inheritance.Nevertheless, premarital migration is still a minor factor resulting in the lack of land inheritance among children.In three villages, the negative effect of premarital migration was found to be larger for children from families with small land endowment.On the one hand, an increase in premarital migration increases the inequality in land ownership of children' s generation as a whole.On the other hand, it reduces landholding inequality among those who receive land from their parents.This study reveals that the negative effect of premarital migration on land inheritance is increasing in recent years probably due to an improvement in the working conditions of migrant workers.