Aspects of Human Migration in 21st-Century India

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Volume 1 • Issue 1 • 1000104 19
Madridge J Behav Soc Sci.
ISSN: 2638-2032
Madridge
Journal of Behavioral and Social Sciences
Research Article Open Access
Aspects of Human Migration in 21st-Century India
Vikramendra Kumar*
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Article Info
*Corresponding author:
Vikramendra Kumar
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
Delhi School of Economics
University of Delhi
Delhi
India
E-mail: Bardhan.vikramendra@gmail.com
Received: September 25, 2017
Accepted: November 11, 2017
Published: November 17, 2017
Citation: Kumar V. Aspects of Human
Migration in 21st-Century India. Madridge
J Behav Soc Sci. 2017: 1(1): 19-30.
doi: 10.18689/mjbss-1000104
Copyright: © 2017 The Author(s). This work
is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License, which
permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
Published by Madridge Publishers
Abstract
The migrating man suffers harrowing experiences, he works hard, struggling to save
something to send home to his family, but is caught in the vicious cycle of staying in the
city to find a job and doing a job in order to continue staying in the city. Since rural-to-
urban migration has been particularly male-selective and further more the pattern seems
to be “rich student, poor worker”. But we have little information on the consequences of
male migration on the family in the village. We do not know how male migration affects
the structure of roles, division of labour between the sexes or the forms of dominance in
the village production system. There is little data to show how women face the situation
created by the absence of males within the family and in the larger community. Changes
in labour demands, the increasing vulnerability of women, the widening access to
developmental and political processes, the conflicting social demands and the economic
compulsions may all be critical factors affecting the lives of such migrating man. While
we have some idea about the economic and social deprivations of these men, we have
little knowledge about the precise extent of exploitation and suffering they undergo, or
about the views they have on their situation. This paper is an attempt to review the wide
range of literature concerning migration in India.
Keywords: Migration; Change; Development; Exploitation; Social deprivation; Economic
compulsions.
Introduction
Rural India is still floating towards Cities. Migration from one state to another within
India is mainly from Bihar, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Madya Pradesh. Here is a
representative overview of migration from different states of India and persons migrating
to other parts of the country. It is both seasonal and non-seasonal within India. The
seasonal migration is mostly by weavers, brick makers and rice-go down workers
(unloading rice from Lorries to depots and vice-versa). The non-seasonal migration is
mainly by washermen, shoe-makers, hawkers (going from house to house), kerosene
sellers, rickshaw drivers, fruit & vegetable wallas, railway-station porters, and employees
of the Food Corporation of India, of other important wholesale food stockers, and of the
Assam Electricity Board (e.g. helping repair electricity-line poles). These migrants live
mostly without family in male groups and lead a very simple life, keeping in view their
motive to earn money and send it to their family members living in Bihar, where some
of that money is used, for instance, to build family houses. On many occasions,
particularly for religious festivals or for the engagement or marriage of a family member,
the migrant workers come back home. Since the 1960s, a number of major developments
in global migration patterns have placed the phenomenon at the heart of international
politics. First, the scale of movements has increased exponentially.
In the 1960s, only a handful of countries, mainly the traditional immigration nations
in North America and Oceania, were significantly affected by international migration,
but by the 1990s more than 2 per cent of the world’s population was living outside of
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their country of birth [1], and virtually every nation was
influenced in some way by immigration or emigration of
various kinds. Second, there has been an enormous increase
in the diversity of international population movement.
Whereas in the past, the bulk of such movement involved
permanent, or at least long-term, settlement at the destination,
world migration is now characterised by not only increased
levels of permanent settlement in foreign countries but also
by a myriad of temporary, circular migrations of varying
duration with a range of purposes. Third, and perhaps
inevitably, there has been a dramatic increase in the number
of global institutions shaping the level and pattern of
international migration.
Further, government involvement is increasing, not only
in destination countries where attempts to limit the number
and characteristics of immigrants have escalated, but also in
origin countries where nations have realised the benefits of
remittances to national development and actively encouraged
emigration of various kinds. However, it is often overlooked
that there are other institutions that have become important
gatekeepers and facilitators in international migration [2,3].
These factors have reinforced each other to change the racial
mix of many countries and cities beyond all recognition.
Simultaneously, the increase in international migration has
also given rise to paranoia and xenophobia. Migrants
everywhere live a tenuous existence-rarely gaining the same
rights as non-migrants, their hosts always aloof. Blamed for a
range of ills-from unemployment to crime, strained social
services to lack of national unity-migrants are aware of just
how easily their rights can be swept away.
Literature Review
The human world has always been on the move. The scale
and speed of migration has grown tremendously since the
late nineteenth century, as transport and communication
networks have brought ever larger masses of people together,
with interruptions caused by policies of governments, keen to
protect their territoriality in the short-term interest of a few
privileged groups and with only a dim vision of a common
future for humanity. In the case of citizens of one state,
migration is a common affair, with migrants becoming
seasonal travelers for work, festivals and pilgrimages. Migrants
move between town and cities; they choose different places
for spending their working lifetime in and for retiring to; they
continually experience and absorb the culture or educational
and health facilities of host communities, transmitting in turn
their own culture and their own expertise to the host
communities. This same pattern should apply to the globalised
world of today. Migration forms part of being a global citizen-
citizens who feel at home anywhere, without losing a sense of
where they come from and who are always ready to reinvent
themselves as they absorb the wonders of new cultures, new
technologies and new ways of being human. The various
perspectives of the effects of human capital mobility within
the migratory and development processes have not been free
of the tensions that result from the nature of the exchanges
and the unequal power relationships that are to be found in
both the circulation of world knowledge and in its production,
appropriation and use [4,5]
In fact, the migration of skilled or unskilled professionals
and scientists from developing countries to industrialised
economies has long been a controversial issue, and it has
generated a myriad of questions. Firstly, it has economic and
social implications for the developing countries of origin
whose bank of human capital is limited. Secondly, skilled
migrants establish linkages with the host countries, the main
focus of which is on the demand for their skills and their
integration into labour markets. In this context, there has
been a resurgence of the migration and development nexus
in recent research and policy discussions, and one of the main
focus of attention is now directed towards the positive effects
of migration. This is not a new topic, but it has gained
relevance in recent times, with migrants now being considered
as a potential leverage tool for development [6-8] who act as
bridges between the home and the host countries. This has
changed the dominant vision from the decades between 1960
and 1980 which focused on the negative effects migration
had on the development of the countries of origin as a result
of the transfer of valuable human resources to the productive
systems of the countries of destination. Accordingly, it has
been recognized that globalization and technological
advances enable the emergence of new dimensions and
opportunities for cooperation between the countries of origin
and those of destination [9]. This has inspired countries to
negotiate new policy options with the intention of finding
ways that can allow them to take advantage of the potential
benefits of their overseas-based communities for their
national development.
In practice, diverse studies have shown how skilled
migrants can contribute to their countries of origin through
transnational diaspora networks, business and investments
links, scientific cooperation and eventual return to the home
country [6,8,10,11]. The relationship between skilled migration
and socio-economic development is not a simple one, and
indeed, several experiences have shown that the society in
the country of origin does not always benefit from brain gain
practices. Furthermore, the potential for a positive impact on
the various levels of the actual development process (micro,
meso or macro) is not the same for all cases as it depends on
both the particular characteristics of the migrants, and the
contexts of the countries in which their migratory projects are
carried out [7,12]. Therefore, the structural context of the
country in question matters as a result of its influence on the
possibility of having an impact on development. As Kapur [12]
points out, while international migration is a cause and a
consequence of globalisation, its effects in the countries of
origin depend above all on internal factors in those countries.
India represents a good case in point because of the strong
presence of Indian skilled professionals, engineers, scientists
and students in Western countries, which has long been a
cause of national pride as well as a matter of general concern.
In recent years, India’s gains in the form of reverse flows of
expertise, investment and business leads, knowledge and

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technology and the world’s highest financial remittances,
have resulted in a more positive view of the influence that
foreign-based Indians can have on the economic progress of
India and its integration in the world economy [12,13]. In
development terms, India is a paradigmatic case since it has
managed to position itself as one of the most dynamic
countries in transition in the last two decades, boasting one
of the highest rates of economic growth-registering GDP
increases of 6 % in real terms during the 1990s and 7 % in the
last decade-thereby becoming the second fastest growing
large economy in the world after China [14,15].
However, achieving high growth should be judged in
terms of the impact that such economic growth has on the
quality of life and the social advancement of people, the
expansion of their human capacities and their basic liberties
[14-16]. It is precisely in this aspect where India still has a long
way to go. Drèze and Sen [15] suggest that there is an urgent
need for those who dream of making India a super economic
power to reconsider not only the extent of their understanding
of the mutual relationship between growth and development,
but also their assessment of the demands of social justice,
which are integrally linked to the expansion of human liberties.
Similarly, D’Costa and Bagchi [14] stress that India’s economic
transition and high growth encompass deep rural poverty,
underdevelopment and unprecedented forms of social and
economic inequality. As India has attained a relevant position
on the world stage in terms of its economic growth,
technological innovation and competence, the increased
demand for a skilled labour force resulting from its
modernisation process has intensified the pressure to produce
human capital of high quality. Even though the educational
system is a key element in the definition of the quality and
magnitude of the human capital available, India is faced with a
lack of skilled human capital as a result of a deficient
educational system and other serious problems that prevent
the vast majority of the population not only from benefitting
from economic progress but from participating in it as well.
The fact that only the Indian elites have the chance to attain an
excellent level of training (including the possibility of studying
abroad) is the consequence of a complex structural problem
that divides a privileged social group from the rest of society
[14,15,17]. The low level of social and human development
attained by the majority of its population has seen India fall
behind in the various international rankings on prosperity. In
the 2012 UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) (UNDP [18]),
the country ranked 136th worldwide among the 187 countries
included, sharing that position with Equatorial Guinea. India
performs worse than other rapid emerging economies such as
Russia, Brazil, China and South Africa, and its HDI average is
below that of those countries, and it lags behind in all HDI
component indicators and in terms of its overall position
(136th while Russia ranks 55th, Brazil 85th, China 101st and
South Africa 121st). In the 2012 Gender Inequality Index (GII),
it ranked 132nd out of 148 countries, showing for example
that 26.6 % of adult women have reached a secondary level of
education compared to 50.4 % for men and that female
participation in the labour market is 29 % compared to 80.7 %
for their male counterparts (UNDP [8]). Notwithstanding the
modest progress made in the last few decades, these data
show that the country still has a very long way to go towards
effective poverty eradication and a balanced and more
inclusive broad-based development. Since the gains from
migration contribute to the discourse on the economic growth
of India, it is necessary to look at the options that help channel
possible benefits towards the neediest sectors of the
population and also to assess the effects of skilled migration
from a broad perspective that considers the implications for
human development and people’s quality of life. All of this is
done on the basis that the consequences of skilled migration
in the form of transnational diaspora links, knowledge and
experience flows, transfers of financial remittances or return
migration are neither a panacea nor the way forward for the
development of the countries of origin.
In the recent past, many studies of Indian migration were
motivated by an interest in the socio-economic development
contributions of the Indian diaspora. One such contribution,
probably the most tangible of all, was in the form of financial
remittances, which represent a clear link between migration
and development, and many studies have highlighted the
specific benefits for recipients [19-21]. The total amount of
remittances has not only made India the world’s top recipient
but this amount has increased considerably over the past few
decades. Data from the World Bank show that remittances
from India grew six fold between 1990 and 2000, rising from
$2.1 billion to $12.3 billion, and they increased almost five
fold in the last decade, reaching $55 billion in 2010 (World
Bank [22]). Research has shown how the Indian diaspora has
affected the home country in other ways, and a significant
part of this research has focused on the development impact
of Indian skilled professionals, engineers and scientists who
are based abroad.
The frameworks of the studies from the 1960s to 1970s
were mostly based on the brain drain approach, with most
analyses emphasising the loss of human capital and the
detrimental cost of public investment in higher education
[23-25]. Bhagwati [24] proposed the idea of taxing brain drain
and compensating the losers by giving a share of the sum
collected to the home countries [20]. However, over the last
two decades, the focus has shifted towards a study of the
transfer of knowledge, expertise and social capital gained by
Indians overseas that may result in beneficial outcomes. By
emphasising the possible benefits for India through the
possibility of human capital transfers to the home country
without people having to physically return there, Khadria [26]
contributed to a change of viewpoint. All in all, diaspora
contributions and return migration became more relevant as
attempts were made to understand the impact of Indian
skilled migration [13]. In this fashion, several recent studies
illustrate the important role that transnational diaspora
networks have played in helping innovation and
entrepreneurship in India. Saxenian [27,28] highlights the
collective action of the Indian engineers and technicians who
mobilised many of their fellow nationals into active
associations and networks in the Silicon Valley region of the

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USA during the late 1990s, contributing to a reinforcement of
India’s scientific and technological capacities through
knowledge and technology transfers as well as in the form of
investment, and entrepreneurial and business linkages. Nanda
and Khanna [29] studied the links between the Indian diaspora
and local entrepreneurs in the software industry in India, and
they found that relying on diaspora networks for business
leads and financing is something associated with better
performing firms, especially those based in smaller cities with
weaker institutional and financial environments.
A more recent study by Docquier and Rapoport [30]
analyses the various channels through which Indian skilled
migrants have contributed to the Indian economy. Firstly, their
presence in the host countries has encouraged business links
and they have provided foreign investors with information on
the Indian labour force and this has generated demand for
both Indian specialists in the IT sector and for IT services
exported from India. Secondly, Indian skilled migration has
helped to transfer knowledge and technology through diverse
channels, including return and circular migration. Thirdly,
Indian skilled migrants have played an important role as
advisors, helping to improve the settings for entrepreneurship
and venture capital in India, and they have also been actively
involved in strategic decision-making. The authors show how
highly skilled migration can generate positive network
externalities and create winners, instead of simply depleting a
country’s human capital. While Kapur [12,31] singles out the
determining role of the Indian diaspora in India’s rise in the
global IT sector during the 1990s and after, Chanda and
Sreenivasan [32] show its importance for the national economy,
within IT and business process outsourcing. These studies show
how Indian IT professionals have attracted significant attention
as they have come to be seen as a transnational class of
professionals actively engaged in building an India that is
global in scope. All these and further studies suggest the strong
connections that skilled Indians based overseas maintain with
people back in India, and they also show their systematic
exchanges of information on jobs, business and investments
prospects, science, technology and innovation, which result in
beneficial contributions in the form of business and investment
links, the expansion of entrepreneurship, the promotion of
trade and scientific cooperation. At a policy level, it is noticeable
that the Indian government has begun to appreciate these
benefits, and it has recently implemented a number of policies
aimed at harnessing the resources of skilled migrants. Beyond
diaspora contributions, return migration is seen as another
powerful tool for development in India.
In recent years, the country has experienced an increase
in the number of skilled professionals returning home from
the USA, UK and other European countries. It has been
documented that these returnees are pulled by the economic,
career, entrepreneurial and business opportunities that they
see in India and by the chance to access local markets. Diverse
research shows that together with family ties, a feeling of
patriotism acts as an additional driving force motivating their
return [33,34]. There are also some push factors at play and
these include economic downturn in the destination countries
which results in job insecurity, and the end of temporary
contracts [32]. Several studies see returning Indian
professionals and entrepreneurs as having an important role
to play in the socio-economic development of India, and
these studies emphasise the transfer of advanced technical
skills, managerial know-how and financial assets which they
deploy in their professional activities, entrepreneurial ventures
and investments, and in the creation of jobs [27,31,33].
Nanda and Khanna [29] show how overseas experience
allows Indian entrepreneurs to gain access to business and
financial opportunities. Taking examples of selected European
countries, Rothgang and Schmidt [35], discuss the issues of
return skilled migration and the brain gain effect. They stress
the role of disseminating knowledge and the positive
economic externalities arising from return migration. They
also refer to the benefits that the IT sector in India had gained
from such return migration. More recent research has shown
the influence that structures and environments in the home
and host countries have on the return plans and mobility
decisions of skilled Indians based in developed countries.
Finegold et al. [34] studied Indian students in the US. On the
basis of a survey of skilled migrants, they noted that Indian
students were potentially prepared to return to India if they
could be guaranteed a good quality of life and a good career;
Indian students in the USA would become potential returnees
if there were good research opportunities and fewer hurdles
in the forms of corruption and bureaucratic red tape in the
home country. In relation to this point, Dustmann et al. [36]
used the help of a dynamic model to explain how migration
decisions often respond to the opportunity and efficiency of
skills acquisition (including skills that are applicable to the
home country). According to their view, skills are generally
acquired where the cost of acquiring them is low and skills
will go to the places where they can be applied with the best
chance of a high return. I humbly argue that there is scope for
brain gain through return migration if opportunities exist to
apply the acquired skills and if the skills are more valued in
the home country.
Temporary migration, often used interchangeably with
circular, seasonal, short-term and spontaneous migration, has
been a subject of much discourse. According to Zelinsky [37],
all these movements, usually short-term, repetitive or cyclic,
having the common motive of a temporary change of
residence, are circular in nature. Circular migrants follow a
circular path and maintain continuous but temporary
absences from their place of origin for more than one day [38]
Temporary or circular migration is a move made for a short
period of time with the intention of returning to the place of
usual residence. An important group of temporary migrants
consists of seasonal migrants, who combine activity at several
places according to seasonal labour requirements [39].
Prevailing regional inequalities and uneven development in
many Asian countries impel temporary internal migration
from agriculturally backward and poor rural areas. Temporary
migration has increased substantially in the last two decades
in south, south-east and East Asia [40-44]. Seasonal migration
has long been a source of income for rural households unable

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to support themselves through agriculture. Households
diversify their economic activities outside the traditional
agricultural sphere by sending out members to work in urban
areas in the lean period [45]. According to the school of New
Economics of Labour Migration (NELM), temporary migration
is considered a risk diversification strategy [46-48]. It is evident
from the extant literature that temporary migration is one of
the most significant livelihood strategies adopted by the
poorest sections in rural India, predominantly in the form of
seasonal mobility of labour [49-58]. People also move from
rural areas to nearby or distant cities to find jobs in construction
or the unorganized informal sector [51,53,59,60]. Mukherji
[61] has termed this distress migration, which, according to
him, paves the way for urban decay by causing urban poverty,
unemployment and a shortage of housing. Breman [59], on
the other hand, sees seasonal labour migration in western
India as an important survival option for landless laborers.
Landless agricultural laborers in Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya
Pradesh, West Bengal and Jharkhand, who are trapped in
debt bondage and belong to the lower social strata (scheduled
tribes and castes or STs and SCs), migrate seasonally within or
outside their states [51,53,56,57,59,60,62]. For instance, the
monsoon frequently fails in Panchmahals district of Gujarat
and seasonal migration of the tribal population to nearby
rural and urban areas is common [62]. Similar circumstances
prompt temporary migration among tribal women in
Jharkhand and West Bengal as well [57,63]. Though such
migration can be taken as a sign of dynamism, it has more to
do with increasing inequalities, agrarian instability and
inadequate livelihood generation in many parts of rural and
urban India [39,64].
There are several demographic and socio-economic
factors such as age, sex, educational attainment, social group
or caste, religion, poverty and size of landholding that affect
temporary migration [40,42-45,65]. We have found that in
rural areas, the decision of men to migrate is mainly moulded
by community-level factors, while among women; temporary
labour migration is predominantly determined by individual
characteristics. Among the broad group of the underclass or
the socio-economically deprived, which includes the poorest
of the poor, the landless, illiterates or those with a very low
level of education (say, primary school), the SC/STs and
Muslims, temporary migration is very high [38,54,63,66-69].
Poverty is supposed to be a key push factor in temporary
migration. Skeldon [70] states that under certain conditions,
poverty may be the root cause of migration in some parts of
the world, whereas in other parts, under different conditions,
the poor may be among the last to move. Brauw [40] finds
that households having low annual expenditures are more
prone to migrate than others.
Some studies using data from the National Sample Survey
(NSS) and Census of India have established that poor people
are less mobile as far as permanent or semi-permanent
migration is concerned [71-73], while Kundu and Sarangi [74]
find there is no association between poverty and seasonal
migration across the urban centers. Recent work by Keshri and
Bhagat [37], which utilizes data from the 55th round of the NSS,
reveals that seasonal migration is very prevalent among those
belonging to the lowest expenditure quintiles, rural areas and
STs. States having a higher level of inequality show higher
temporary migration rates. However, the data has some
limitations because the sample of temporary migrants is small
and information is lacking on their destinations and occupations.
Despite large-scale temporary migration in absolute
numbers, the phenomenon has not been adequately studied at
the macro level in India. This has possibly been due to the
unavailability of national-level data or the very limited information
collected by national surveys (as in the 55th round of the NSS)
[71]. The census, which is the other important source of migration
data, is mainly concerned with current and permanent migration
and does not attempt to capture seasonal or short-term flows of
labour [39,64]. There is thus a dearth of studies that provide a
general picture of temporary migration at the national and state
levels, which also examine its determining factors.
Against this backdrop, the recently available data from the
64th round of the NSS (2007-08) [71] provides a great
opportunity to study temporary migration in India [39]. With a
comparatively large sample size of temporary migrants, this
data allows us to analyze the phenomenon at the state level.
Moreover, there is information on the destinations of temporary
migrants, which makes studying streams of migration possible
[64]. The quality of the data has also improved compared to the
previous round. Therefore this study aims to explore the pattern
and state-wise intensity of temporary migration and to examine
its association with poverty, landholding and education after
controlling for other socio-demographic factors. As temporary
migration in India is strongly influenced by seasons, the terms
“temporary” and “seasonal” are used interchangeably. In this
study, a temporary migrant is defined as a household member
who has stayed away from his or her village or town for one
month or more but less than six months in the last 365 days for
employment or in search of employment.
Factors of Migration
‘Push’ and ‘Pull’ factors are most important parts of rural
migration of unskilled and unemployed workers of India in
general and Bihar in particular. Employment opportunity is
shrinking everywhere due to increase in population, decline in
handicraft, stagnant agricultural economy and absence of
industrial growth which resulted into large scale seasonal
migration from Bihar. Furthermore, the influence of kinship
acted as most powerful factor to motivate their near and dear
friends and relatives to come to places where such labourers
are working and earning through their enterprising efforts.
Difference in socio-economic pattern is basically responsible
for migration in India. Most of the migrants in Bihar to other
places belong to lower and depressed section of the society
who are the worst victims of exploitation of landlords and big
farmers. The demographic pressure coupled with famine,
flood and starvation occurring due to failure of monsoon is
the potent cause of migration. This forced the weaker section
of society to move along with other known persons already
engaged in job. Being motivated by the desire to seek
freedom from life of incessant toil and shameful exploitation,

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a big chunk of schedule caste and backward class community
migrated to urban cities.
However, one of the significant features about migration
is that Migrants usually keep their alliance with the place of
origin. Migrants usually carry the knowledge which they
impart to the native population by way of discussion &
participation in various activities, their sense of importance of
education which they develop in their surroundings, their
liberal attitude regarding the traditional social system, all
these things directly contribute to the development of rural
areas. Almost all the migrants contribute to the development
of the rural areas either economically or socially or both. The
economic condition of the migrants families is by & large
better than those families in the village where from no
migration has taken place. Thus, rural to urban migration
seems to be an important factor in the social & economic d
urban areas, usually in search of a better livelihood [73]. In
evelopment of the rural areas.
Migration and Household Economy
Migration has been significantly reshaping the traditional
social and economic structures of rural communities of this
country. The livelihood activities of rural families are no longer
confined to farming and are increasingly being diversified
through rural-to-urban and international migration. With the
development of trade and industry and the awareness
produced by the mass media, rural poor are shifting towards
the urban areas in order to improve their living standards and
to search for better livelihood opportunities. The lack of
employment opportunities in the rural areas and better
employment prospects and infrastructure facilities in the
urban areas motivate people to migrate to urban areas. In the
rural areas, sluggish agricultural growth and limited
development of the rural non-farm sector raises the incidence
of rural poverty, unemployment and under employment.
Given the fact that most of the high productivity activities are
located in the urban areas – people from rural areas move
towards town or cities with a hope to grab diversified
livelihood opportunities as the rural poor still consider
migration as one of the significant as well as reliable livelihood
coping strategy. Migration primarily occurs due to disparities
in regional development.
The causes of migration are usually explained by using
two broad categories, namely, push and pull factors. Studies
conducted in the sphere of migration in India - found that
poverty, job searching and family influence have been the
main push factors for out-migration, while availability of
better employment opportunity, prior migrants and availability
of better educational facilities have been identified as the key
pull factors behind migration. To be more specific, for rural
India, poverty is still considered to be the main push factor for
illiterates and moderately educated migrants. The National
Sample Survey Office in its 64th round survey which was
carried out during July 2007 to June 2008, covering a random
sample of 5,72,254 persons, covering 79,091 rural and 46,487
urban households spread over 7921 villages and 4688 urban
blocks of the country, explored some significant trends of
rural migration in India. As per the economists and
development experts - migration is essential for development
and it is a desirable phenomenon; but what is not desirable is
the distressed migration found across the nation resulting in
over-crowding of cities and mushrooming of slums. Some
states which have higher investment and resources for
development experience high in-migration; at the same time,
the backward states like U.P, Bihar, M.P, etc are experiencing
heavy out-migration. The rural poor from the downtrodden
and backward communities and backward regions such as
Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh travel to far distances seeking
employment at the lowest rungs in construction of roads,
irrigation projects, commercial and residential complexes etc.
Hence, there is a need for balanced regional development.
More focus for development and migration of labourers from
rural to urban areas is a reflection of our misplaced
development policies; investment in economic growth has
been biased toward the capital-intensive urban centers,
despite the fact that majority of India resides in the rural areas.
Even the little that is spent in villages is wasted in
microeconomic interventions to help individual villagers and
not the macro-economy of the village as a whole. For instance,
the government has no employment generation schemes for
cities; yet, there are plenty of jobs and high-paying ones too.
On the contrary, for rural India, there are a variety of job
creation schemes for the poor but hardly few jobs are available
which are well-paid. Agriculture is stagnating and may not be
able to provide further jobs; but most villages have enough
other non-farm resources, like forests, which can be used to
generate rural livelihood opportunities. Studies aptly indicate
that the costs and risks of migration are heavy, including the
risk of disease, injury and not being able to send children to
school. Given a choice, migrants would not sacrifice their
children’s future or their own health, but they are compelled
to do so because they cannot look after themselves or their
children properly when they migrate. The fault lies with the
institutional and policy environment and not with migration
per se. Policy responses need to be framed in such a manner
that can help the most vulnerable migrants. The emphasis of
policy should be on minimizing the costs and risks of migration
and maximizing its returns. At present, migrants cannot access
to subsidized food through the Public Distribution System,
which works on residence criteria; they cannot easily access
state schools, cheap housing or government health care. So
there is an urgent need to reform policies keeping in view
these critical issues. At the same time, there is a need to
provide migrants with access to information on jobs, wage
rates and their rights as well as to promote safe and legal
migration, which includes non-discriminatory legislation,
policies and practice to protect the human rights and national
entitlements of men, women and children who migrate. So it
may be concluded that while addressing the complex issues
of migration, it is important to take into consideration the
growing incidences of poverty among huge sections of the
rural population. It is time the high for the government to
tackle the poverty of villages rather than the poverty of

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ISSN: 2638-2032
villagers. Villagers cannot get rich so long as villages remain
poor, too poor to attract modern industry and commerce. The
key is now to ensure and guarantee employment for the rural
poor by giving utmost priority to generation of diversified
livelihood opportunities in rural India on sustainable manner.
For the landless and marginal farmers who are in constant
debt, migration is the only choice for livelihood. The push
arising out of lack of livelihood options in the village and
indebtedness and crop loss leads to the pull factors such as
the attraction of livelihood in the lean seasons.
However it has been established that migration enables
one just enough earning to tide over the distress in the lean
season and in no way helps to accumulate capital. The
phenomenon of migration is believed to have taken roots in
the aftermath of severe drought of the 1960s. Today every
year thousands of people across the length and breadth of
the region leave their native villages in search of food and
employment. Most end up as bonded laborers being paid
minimal daily wages. Alienation of land, labour and produce is
the driving force for migration. Though the migrants and their
households might benefit individually, it is seen that this
individual benefit occurs at the cost of net loss to both rural
and urban areas, and a decline in social welfare, through
overcrowding and increased population in urban destination
areas and a greater regional concentration of wealth, income
and human capital. Traditionally, agriculture and related
cottage industries were the only major professions in the rural
areas. These professions could not absorb the ever increasing
population in the rural areas. On the basis of a large sample
survey in Bihar, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh, Oberai, Prasad and
Sardana [75] reported that in all the urban areas of the three
states, female migrants’ work participation rates are generally
higher among Christians and Scheduled Castes/Tribe whether
married or unmarried and availability of high productivity
jobs in the rural areas could reduce immigration to the urban
areas. It is widely accepted that people move in search of
employment and also from low wage to higher wage region
–a rational choice to be able to earn more and improve their
standard of living.
Impact of MNREGA
In the light of this it is necessary to understand whether
MNREGA is an alternative to Migration. One of the significant
objectives of the MNREGA is to arrest out-migration of
unskilled, landless labour force from the rural areas to urban
areas by ensuring up to 100 days of wage employment within
their native jurisdiction so that these guaranteed wage
employment can be judiciously and rationally utilized by the
landless peasants during lean and distress seasons. As far as
possible, the work site is to be within a five km radius of the
applicant’s village. In case it is not, it must be provided within
the Block and the laborers must be paid 10 percent of their
wages as extra wages to meet the additional travel and living
expenses. MNREGA, too, could become a “predictable” source
of local employment (since it guarantees work within a
fortnight to anyone demanding it), and therefore reduces
distress migration. In this respect, MNREGA contrasts with
previous employment programmes such as Jawahar Rozgar
Yojana or Sampoorna Grameen Rozgar Yojana. MNREGA
have significant positive impact on seasonal rural-urban
migrations by providing rural workers with employment
during the lean season. This will reduce the problems of
excessive population pressures in Indian cities as surplus rural
labour will find employment in their own villages. MNREGA
also have an impact on permanent migrations trends.
While it is difficult to ascertain what the exact impact will
be, one can assume that the created infrastructure and the
increased activity in the rural economy due to increased
purchasing power will lead to higher rates of permanent job
creation and thus mitigating the urgency to migrate. Before
MNREGA, these tribal villages had no option but to move
from place to place during off-fishing/off-agricultural season.
But with employment guarantee scheme in place, they have a
source of livelihood during drought and off-fishing seasons.
The lack of exact official data on migration is a matter that
should be corrected as soon as possible as it is quite important
to quantify this as accurately as possible as rural-urban
migration can become quite a problem for both the source
and the destination areas.
However, rural migration is the phenomenon that
describes the movement of people from their villages to
urban areas, usually in search of a better livelihood [76]. In
India there are a vast number of landless labours and equally
vast numbers of partially employed workers in rural sector,
internal mobility is critical to the livelihoods of many people,
especially for people from rural areas who generate a
continuous stream of out migrants destined for cities. These
emigrants add to their own misery by living on pavements or
in slums and add to the misery of the cities by taxing to the
already in adequate city and by adding to the un-employed
and un-skilled workforce of the city. Existing studies of
migration tell us about the destination, occupation, income,
visits home and other characteristics of the migrants, but
there is hardly any concern with the village-based family.
Furthermore, different patterns of migration are seen among
certain castes, groups, regions, etc. From some regions only
males migrate while from others whole families do so. There
are various social and cultural factors that explain the
variations in the migration streams to major cities Emotional
attachment to village, home and land, sex segregation and
immobility of females (except migration subsequent to
marriage and migration due to principles of patriarchy and
village exogamy, which account for 58 per cent of the total
female migration), the concepts of purity and pollution and
the norms regarding work in different castes may provide part
of the explanation.
Male only migration has been a traditional feature of
internal migration in India from regions where local
employment opportunities are scarce to places with greater
economic opportunities. The women remain at home. There
is much more evidence in the oral tradition and folk-songs
than in social-science literature of the sufferings and

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ISSN: 2638-2032
deprivations of the women of such families whose men have
gone to earn a living in the city The phenomenon of migrant
families dates back to the pre-industrial period, though
migration has increased with industrialization. The folk-songs
called ‘bidesia’ and ‘birha’ of eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar,
two areas with a high concentration of male migration to
cities, refer to the beloved living in a far off Country’ and
reflect the unhappy and lonely existence of the women who
arc left behind [77]. One universal feature of the process of
migration in the village is that pre-established ways undergo
changes, there are rises in the levels of aspiration and values
of the members of the family, changes in the occupational
structure and economic status and a revision of inter caste
relations. The outcome may be enrichment of the village due
to remittances from the city on the one hand, and
impoverishment of the village due to the absence of a large
number of able-bodied young men, who leave the village to
the very young, the very old and the women, who sometimes
have to face great challenge. The migrant from the lower
stratum sets out to find work in the city without any specific
abilities. He is seldom in a position to support the village-
based family which maintains itself with whatever work is
available in the village. The woman who remains behind has
to assume, in addition to her own familial and domestic
responsibilities, the role of sole bread-winner; the older
daughter takes over the household chore and plays the role
of a little surrogate mother to her brothers and sisters.
An analysis of the family in the village, with the broad
objective of observing the effects of male migration disturbs
the traditional balance of intra-familial dependence, increases
the responsibilities of women for the subsistence of the family
and confronts them with frequent economic crisis and
emotional insecurity. Does it also bring about an improvement
in their control and power over the family’s resources and an
increasing role in decision-making? Is migration of the male
instrumental in the upward social mobility of the family? Is
migration the only alternative to cope with the problems
emerging from rapid social change? These are some relevant
questions that may be difficult to answer within the scope of
this study but have been kept in mind in the analysis of the
data on the family in the village.
Nevertheless, migration provides a pool of labour that
becomes the backbone of any growing economy. A study on
the status of migrants working in Delhi city found that they
experienced changes in their social, economic and cultural
status after migration. Despite discrimination and exploitation
they continued to work out of desperation. While they saved
a meagre amount which they remitted home to their families,
their overall economic condition improved post-migration.
Labour is one of the most important factor input for any
sector in India. Various employment guarantee schemes like
the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee
Act (MGNREGA) ensure the survival of individuals in their
native villages and the number of non-migrant individual’s
increases since these schemes reduce both rural and urban
migration [78]. Such schemes will also have a drastic effect on
supply of migrant labour for not only agriculture but also
industry. Therefore, there is a need to understand the socio-
economic status of these migrants and to keep the cycle of
development running by retaining them. Laborers migrate
from their native states due to various economic reasons [79]
but how far are they able to achieve the desired economic
standards and how far does migration help in improvement of
their living standards?
More specifically, the study examines the socio-economic
background, the determinants that lead to migration, the
nature and extent of employment and income, consumption
pattern and nature of remittances of these laborers. Also, the
employers’ behavior towards migrant laborers was examined.
The migrants form an important base for supply of labour for
Delhi’s economy which requires labour extensively for its
growing agricultural and industrial sector. They are looked
upon as out siders despite their efforts to be accepted as
equals. Efforts need to be made to give them opportunities
on par with local labourers so that they do not feel
discriminated against. The employers should not only not
discriminate against them but also encourage the local
labourers to be friendly and respectful towards their migrant
counterparts. The locals should also make efforts to mingle
with them and accept them as a part of their society so that
the socio cultural changes they undergo are more by choice
than force. Efforts must be made to set up special cells in
public organisations which deal with the problems these
labourers face. Such steps would go a long way in providing a
sense of security which would indirectly help both, the laborers
and the state’s economy. Just as the loans of agricultural
farmers are waived by the government, efforts need to be
made to introduce the same for the poverty ridden non-
agricultural rural population as well. Nationalised banks must
advertise the loan opportunities and various schemes and
make the availability of such loans easy and quick.
The government needs to make special efforts to ensure
that the labourers are not forced to work overtime but if that
is inevitable then provisions need to be made to ensure that
they are paid for the extra hours. Some of the working
processes in the industrial units are hazardous and the
labourers must be provided with safety equipment and
accessories like gloves, masks and special uniforms. Stronger
enforcement of laws mandating the compulsory availability of
first aid should be ensured. The industrial units should ensure
that the labourers are placed appropriately and according to
the skills possessed and have job security along with the
facilities enjoyed by other permanent workers. The problems
of the migrant labourers need to be handled through
cooperation and coordination between the labour unions and
other government and nongovernmental organisations.
However, the trade unions defend the local laborers but do
not speak up for the migrant ones. This must change.
Temporary and Seasonal Migration
Temporary and seasonal migration has long been an
important income diversification and risk-coping strategy in
many agriculture based economies in the developing world.

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In places where access to non-agricultural employment is
limited, or climate (or technology) prevents continuous
cultivation, seasonal migration is often the key to a household’s
income during the agricultural lean season. It is not only an
important form of labour mobility in a country with an
increasing shift of the labour force from agriculture to industry
and the tertiary sector [37], but also critical to the livelihoods
of socially deprived groups, especially tribal people and those
from rural areas who lack of employment at their place of
origin. This study presents regional patterns and, more
importantly, the socio-economic determinants of temporary
and seasonal migration in India more specifically. Regional
variations in temporary migration are noteworthy in a country.
Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and
Nagaland have a very high intensity of migration. All these
states either have a high level of intra-state inequality or a
high proportion of STs and SCs. We observe stark rural-urban
differentials in the intensity of temporary migration, which
may be explained by differentials in levels of economic
development in rural and urban areas and the resulting
availability of employment.
Overall, temporary and seasonal migration declines with
better economic and educational status. In rural areas, those
with increasing incomes become less prone to migrate
temporarily. Social factors play a critical role in migration
decisions. Those belonging to STs have a higher chance of
migrating seasonally than people in any other social group. In
the recent past, migration in and from developing countries
has most often been seen by governments as both abnormal
and a sign of chronic social breakdown – an implicit indictment
of a society’s capacity to provide the social and economic
conditions which permit people to lead an adequate way of
life in the place where they were born. Many newly
independent governments attributed internal migration to
the damage inflicted by colonialism – or capitalism – and
assumed that the newly liberated powers of the State could
be used to end territorial inequalities and create the economic
homogeneity across the national territory which was
supposedly the promise of nationhood. In essence, population
immobility, a settled nation, was seen as the norm. In those
societies where nomadism was a significant phenomenon, the
cruellest measures were undertaken to force people to settle.
From the 1950s with the increasing tempo of urbanisation in
newly independent countries, particularly those which grew
economically most swiftly, this negative attitude towards
migration was reinforced by the fear that the modern
economy and local government would be overwhelmed by
the numbers of migrants and the spread of vast squalid
squatter settlements and shanty towns.
A substantial body of development research and
policymaking today focuses on the potential benefits of
international migration for developing countries, particularly
on the resources that are sent by migrants to their families or
communities at home. This new “development mantra” [80]
views migration as an opportunity rather than a negative
outcome of poverty and underdevelopment, as migrants from
the south working in the north augment their skills and
resources and become conduits through which human and
financial capital is reinvested in their countries of origin. The
current discussion on migration and development was initiated
by the World Bank report on Global Development Finance [81],
which claimed that the inflow of financial resources from
developed to developing countries in the form of migrant
remittances and philanthropy – at $90 billion a year globally –
was nearly twice the total flow of official development
assistance. Subsequently, international development agencies
have repeatedly highlighted the significance of migrant
remittances as a source of capital and investment for developing
countries. Recent figures put the volume of international
remittance transfers to developing countries at $300 billion –an
increase of about 270% in the past decade [19]. Diaspora
philanthropy is also recognised as an important form of migrant
transfers [82]. The current interest in migration and development
has produced a large amount of literature detailing the types,
volumes, channels, destinations, and impact of remittances and
other kinds of resource transfers.
Most of these studies aim to determine whether and how
resources sent by migrants to their home countries contribute
(or not) to development. However, this work suffers from
several theoretical and methodological problems. First, it is
practically impossible to assess comprehensively the impact of
migration on development either by measuring the net losses
and gains of migration or by modeling the macroeconomic
effects of remittances [19]. The inadequacy of official data is
compounded by the large proportion of remittances that flow
through informal channels. Further, most studies remain
straitjacketed by conventional notions of both migration and
development and simplistic models of their interconnections
[83]. Second, migration research often views mobility as a one-
way process that mechanically connects migrant sending and
migrant receiving countries [84], while studies of remittances
too concentrate on unidirectional flows of resources.
Moreover, remittance research is often carried out in
isolation from migration studies, as if these two kinds of flows
(of people and resources) were not interlinked processes. Third,
the migration and development literature often construct
migrants primarily as economic actors, focusing narrowly on
financial transactions to the neglect of other dimensions such
as intangible flows of knowledge, ideas, and know how, I e,
“social remittances” [85]. Similarly, much more attention has
been paid to the economic effects of remittances than to their
potential socio cultural, ideological and political reverberations
[85]. The dominant view of migration and remittances as
economic processes with primarily economic outcomes fails to
take into account the cultural meanings, political motivations,
or social implications of resource transfers. Finally, there is the
problem of scale. Despite a growing recognition that
transnational networks connect migrants with their home
regions or towns at various scales, the development literature
has focused mainly on the relationship between nationally
defined diasporas and their home countries, and on the
macroeconomic effects of remittances – what has been called
“methodological nationalism” [86]. On the other hand, we have
a number of micro-level qualitative studies that examine how

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remittance flows connect particular villages or communities
with migrant members. While this literature provides a useful
corrective to the national-level bias, many of these studies in
turn ignore the larger political-economic context that shapes
patterns of migration and remittances. Few scholars have
attempted to capture the multiple scales at which transnational
mobilities and flows occur, particularly at the intermediate level
of the region, or the interconnections between different levels
and types of flows. In short, to fully unravel the intricacies of the
multiple potential connections between migration and
development, we need to track transnational flows in all their
complexity.
Conclusion: the way forward
Analysis of migration pattern is important to understand
the changes taking place in the people’s movement within the
country. It is the most volatile component of population
growth and most sensitive to economic, political and cultural
factors. Proper understanding of the patterns of migration
would help in understanding not only the nature of population
redistribution, but also regional inequality, labour market and
the process of urbanization, modernization and development.
Migration from rural to urban areas has historically played a
key role in the rapid growth of cities, and along with the
reclassification of rural localities into urban centers, it continues
to be an important component of city growth. We encounter
a ‘double challenge’ for development policy in a country like
India: first of all, it needs to convince its own community to
rethink the development process in India as a ‘bottom-up’
creation and enhance sustainable productivities of labour
through the development of education and health rather than
as a ‘top-down’ development through participation in business
and industry—one comprehensive, the other dispersed; one
long-term and visionary about creating an expanding and self-
sustaining market by enhancing the average productivity of
workers and hence the purchasing power in their pockets, the
other immediate and myopic about selling goods and services
to an existing, but limited, market of high-income buyers. It is
not just a matter of willingness; in many instances, it would
entail long periods of struggling to create the decision-making
and priority-setting discerning abilities, or capabilities,
amongst the leaders of the migrant communities. Secondly,
India must be able to convince the countries of destination
(and the other countries of origin as well) as to where the
dichotomy of distinction between the most ‘painful’ and the
most ‘gainful’ socioeconomic impacts of the migration of its
workers—both skilled and unskilled and both NRIs and PIOs—
lies. At multilateral forums the ‘adversary analysis’ would help
a country like India to press for international norms in the
negotiations of the GATS, on the issue of the movement of
natural persons as service providers under trade, which is just
another description for promoting the temporary entry of
migrants without GATS defining it as such, but explicitly
remaining inapplicable to permanent migration (Martin 2010:
197). At multilateral dialogues, the so-called ‘vulnerability of
unskilled migrants’ and the ‘instability of ‘skill-points’ in
immigrant quotas’ underlying the ‘open-and-shut policy’ of
the destination countries creates another dichotomy that must
be bridged before any impact of migration or return on
development is assessed for India.
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