At Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, a young man stands beside his suitcase while his mother traces his features as though trying to memorize them. His father checks the passport for the third time. A younger sister photographs the scene; an uncle offers final, hurried advice. Everyone knows the flight time and the destination, but nobody speaks of the moment he will vanish behind the departure gate.
The young man is leaving for Australia. The family is proud, and they have every right to be. He has worked hard, secured admission, obtained his visa, and embarked on a path that could change his life. His parents have sacrificed heavily to make it possible—borrowing funds, perhaps parting with land, or spending decades saving for this singular milestone.
It is a familiar tableau across Nepal. It is so common that we rarely pause to consider what it reveals about the nation we have become. The young man is leaving and those around him believe he is moving forward. That is the defining paradox of Nepal’s relationship with migration: we have gradually learned to measure national progress by the sheer physical distance a citizen can put between themselves and home.
A foreign university or a job overseas has become a marker of success in Nepal. A visa approval, a flight ticket or a photograph at the airport can feel like proof that a better future is within reach, even before that future begins. This does not mean Nepalis love their country any less, or that leaving is a mistake. For millions of households, migration has unlocked opportunities that would otherwise have remained out of reach. Overseas employment funds education, healthcare and housing, while international study opens global professional avenues. Remittances have become essential for both households and the national economy.
In fiscal year 2025/26, Nepal Rastra Bank recorded remittance inflows of approximately Rs 2,360 billion, equivalent to 35.8% of GDP. Behind that figure are millions of Nepalis building lives far from home: a nurse in Australia, a construction worker in the Gulf, a student in Canada, a hospitality worker in Japan or a professional in the United Kingdom. Their earnings keep families afloat and help sustain the economy even though they are thousands of miles away.
But there is another side to the story: the money comes home; the people who earn it often do not.
The Shift in the National Imagination
There was a time when parents asked their children what they wanted to become in the future: doctor, engineer, teacher, civil servant, entrepreneur. Today, another question often comes much earlier: “Where do you want to go?”
Children grow up hearing stories about life abroad long before they understand what living in Australia or Europe actually means. They hear of cousins with cars, friends with stable jobs, relatives with houses, or siblings with foreign degrees. Gradually, the idea of going abroad becomes part of how families imagine a better future.
When one young person departs, the ripple effect begins. When a neighbor succeeds abroad, another family considers sending a child overseas. When a relative returns with savings, a younger family member wonders whether he too should follow the same path.
There is nothing unusual about it. But as more people leave, the idea of success begins to narrow. A good earning in Kathmandu can seem ordinary beside a wage earned in Sydney. A modest enterprise in Pokhara may appear less rewarding than a salary abroad. Those who stay are often asked why they have not left, while those with a visa and a departure date are treated as if they have already made it.
The problem is not living abroad. It is the growing tendency to measure a person’s success by how far they have traveled from home.
The Architecture of the Airport Economy
Migration has created an entire economy that extends far beyond the airport departure terminal.
For students, the journey begins months before the flight, with English tests, university applications, education consultancies, bank loans, medical checks and visa processing. For migrant workers, it often involves recruitment agencies, mandatory training, employment contracts and high-interest loans. By the time someone reaches the airport, a whole network of businesses and services has already made money from the decision to leave.
This is Nepal’s airport economy, built around the movement of people and sustained by the hope of a better life. Families borrow heavily because they believe the risk will yield a secure future. Parents liquidate savings so their daughters get opportunities they might not find at home. Couples endure years of physical separation in exchange for the hope of long-term stability.
While migration may begin with one person holding a passport, the decision rarely belongs to that person alone. The hopes, sacrifices and expectations of an entire family travel with them.
What Remains Behind
Signs of migration are visible everywhere in Nepal: freshly painted houses, modern tiles, ornate gates and spacious balconies, often built for families whose members may return only once a year.
Parents take understandable pride in these homes even though the people whose earnings paid for them are often thousands of miles away. They represent years of hard work and sacrifice.
This is one of migration’s quiet contradictions. People leave home to give their families a better life, only to spend so many years away that home becomes a place they visit during annual holidays rather than somewhere they live. For parents, the house is a symbol of their children’s success. For the migrant, it can also be a reminder of everything they missed while earning the money to build it.
Consider a young Nepali couple who decide that one partner will go abroad for a few years. The plan seems straightforward: work hard, save money, return home, buy land and raise a family. The separation is painful, but they can bear it because they believe it will not last forever.
Then the first year passes, and the job becomes more secure. A promotion follows in the second year and the couple finally gets united in a foreign land. By the third, they have a child who soon starts school there. What began as a decision between two people now affects three, then four.
Before they realize it, five years have passed, and they have built a life in another country. What was supposed to be temporary becomes permanent, not necessarily because they changed their minds, but because life kept moving while they were away. The question gradually shifts from “When are we returning?” to “Can we still return?”
The Value of Staying
Amid the steady flow of people leaving Nepal, there is another story worth telling: that of those who stay.
They start businesses, practise medicine, teach, work as engineers and build institutions that provide jobs for others. They choose to build their careers in Nepal even when opportunities abroad are available. Their choices should not be treated as second-best. Staying is not a sign of failure, just as leaving does not automatically guarantee success.
At the heart of this debate is the freedom to choose.
Leaving for a new experience, exposure to another culture or a chance to pursue a particular ambition is part of living in an interconnected world. But when people leave because they see no realistic way to build a future at home, the problem goes beyond individual choice. It raises difficult questions about the opportunities Nepal offers to its people.
There is a difference between wanting to leave and feeling compelled to do so. One reflects personal ambition; the other points to a problem the country cannot afford to ignore.
Toward a Two-Way Bridge
When leaving the country becomes the expected path to success, the psychological toll is severe. Young people begin to believe that their ambitions can only be fulfilled abroad, believing that Nepal is where they happened to be born, but opportunity lies elsewhere.
However, Nepalis living abroad are not a lost generation. They are part of a global network with skills, experience and savings that can transform industries back home. An engineer could return technical expertise, a nurse could help build modern healthcare services, and an entrepreneur could invest in local businesses and create jobs.
Migration can connect Nepal to the rest of the world, but the bridge requires movement in both directions.
For people to consider returning, coming home must make economic and professional sense, not just emotional impulse. This is where the government has a role to play. It cannot decide where people should live, but it can make Nepal a place where returning is a viable option. Stronger institutions, simpler investment procedures, support for entrepreneurship and meaningful ways for the diaspora to contribute could all help make that possible.
If Nepal can create these conditions, migration need not remain a one-way journey. It can become a cycle: leave, learn, contribute and, for those who choose, return.
Ultimately, Nepal’s progress should not be judged by how many of its citizens find work abroad. It should also be measured by how many can see a future worth building at home.
(Kharel is a Nepali-born Australian lawyer and the Principal Lawyer of Emigrate Lawyers, eFamily Lawyers, and Nepali Lawyer Australia. He also serves as
Director and CEO of their parent company, Kharel Law Group.)
