Household Assets and Internal Mobility in Laos: Agricultural Land, Home Ownership, and Multi‐Stream Population Redistribution

ABSTRACT

Internal migration in agrarian economies is usually framed as a rural‐to‐urban transition, but population redistribution follows multiple pathways. Household assets such as land and housing shape these moves, and how they do so is contested: some research finds that assets anchor households in place, while other work finds that they enable movement. This debate has centred on rural‐to‐urban flows in settings of uneven ownership, leaving open how assets relate to the full range of mobility, including non‐migration and rural‐bound moves, where ownership is near‐universal. This study examines that question in Lao PDR, a setting of gradual urbanisation and continued rural dominance. Drawing on the nationally representative Lao Social Indicator Survey, it models three outcomes: migration versus non‐migration, rural versus urban residence among non‐migrants, and the direction of movement among migrants. Two findings emerge. First, mobility in Laos is multidirectional rather than a single rural‐to‐urban flow: measured against rural–urban migration, rural–rural movement is about three times as common, and urban–urban and urban–rural flows each about twice as common. Second, ownership and renting point in opposite directions: agricultural land and home ownership accompany staying and rural‐bound movement, while renting and internet access accompany urban‐oriented mobility. Notably, urban residence does not preclude landholding: most urban residents still own farmland. These findings extend the population geography of assets and mobility beyond the rural‐to‐urban paradigm, revealing a household‐level dual attachment in which the same assets anchor and enable mobility at once.