Land use, Livelihood and Change of Family Structure

This study is about the changes in the land use pattern and the livelihood transformation of the Yaw National family system in Gangaw Township, Magwe region, Myanmar. The study area, Kyaw Village exists between Pontaung and Ponnyataung Mountain ranges eight miles far away from each other. The aim of this study is to explore the relationship between lifestyle changes based on land use and family structure in order to understand the real situation of rural families. After 1988, in the time of the Revolutionary Council and State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), such land use projects as road construction, establishment of model villages, construction of railway lines, and establishment of oil company have increased and the confiscation of farmland of the local farmers have stepped up. In some villages, even the houses were confiscated, and thus, causing great troubles to local farmers. Moreover, due to the scarcity of own land areas, the farmers didn’t have enough land areas to hand over to their children. As a result, the children were compelled to seek livelihood opportunities as company staff, casual laborers at road and bridge construction sites, etc. Moreover, it is also possible to go to Kalay by train conveniently, and trading Indian consumer goods and the products from Chin Hill has been booming. Being the junction of car roads and railroads, every house beside the road becomes home shop, making the town quite busy with merchandising. As a result, the price of road-side land areas of the village becomes extremely higher than that of the other street of the village land areas. This is the obvious change in family formation and relationship. Previously, father, the head of the family, alone took the responsibility of income-earning of the whole family; contrarily, all the household members are to work for incomeearning of the family at present. In March, 2015, Kyaw Region was notified as a town. To be in line with the town’s local amenities, government offices, electricity power stations had to be set up. Therefore, the change in livelihood patterns also caused the changes in family structure, economic and management changes during 2012-2016. For the field research, data collection methods include the design of Ethnographic research depending on specific objectives of this study correlate the documented data