Abstract
A negative perspective has emerged on rural-urban migrants in the development literature, characterizing them as impoverished people, forced out of livelihoods, absorbed into slums, manifesting in a host of civic, and health problems, implicitly endorsing a view that slowing down migration would be desirable not only for the wellbeing of the population receiving them but for the migrants as well. Has this perspective on migration and the stresses and strains in the labour market impacted on labour mobility adversely, when several global institutions are advocating reshaping of economic geography by organising movement of labour force from backward regions to select urban agglomerations? The issue becomes extremely important in Indian context wherein the development process has resulted in accentuation of spatial inequalities in economic and social dimensions. The present paper analyses the trends and pattern of internal migration in India, considering the gender, rural urban categories and durations of mobility, using the latest information from Population Census and National Sample Survey. The general conclusion is that the mobility of men, which is often linked to the strategy of seeking livelihood, has gone down systematically over the past few decades, as it has become increasingly difficult for the poor to shift to urban centres in pursuit of survival. Urban labour market has shown preference for skilled and educated persons which has changed the composition of migrants in urban areas, discounting the proposition that the mobility of labour in the environment of globalization would lead to emergence of inclusive cities.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
World Bank (2009).
- 2.
Migration data from 2011 Census are yet to be available.
- 3.
The figures for 2001 have been reworked out after making adjustments for the three newly formed states. The migrants from (a) Jharkhand to Bihar, (b) Bihar to Jharkhand, (c) Uttar Pradesh to Uttarakhand, (d) Uttarakhand to Uttar Pradesh, (e) Madhya Pradesh to Chhattisgarh and (f) Chhattisgarh to Madhya Pradesh have been subtracted from the total interstate migrants in 2001 to make the data comparable with those of previous Censuses. No adjustment has been made for the data for 1961 which would imply underestimation of the inter-state migrants in that year as there was reorganization of states in 1966 resulting in carving out the state of Haryana.
- 4.
- 5.
The urban centres, particularly large cities that historically had a very high sex ratio (male-to-female ratio), have recorded massive decrease in their sex ratio in the last couple of decades as may be seen in the General Population Tables in the Census .
- 6.
Many of the illegal migrants from neighbouring countries being recorded as interstate migrants could also explain the rising migration trend in the 1990s (Kundu and Saraswati 2012).
- 7.
Further, interstate migration can be noted to be going up for the people whose place of origin is urban , and it has happened due to people moving from one urban centre to another (percentage of urban-to-urban interstate migrants increased from 8.8 in 1999–2000 to 11.0 in 2007–2008; whereas the corresponding figures for urban-to-rural interstate migrants are 7.6 and 7.4).
- 8.
NSSO (2010).
- 9.
A major limitation confronting this exercise is the sampling design of NSS which is supposed to be appropriate for generating estimates of consumption expenditure and poverty only at the state and (NSS) region level. Recent publications of NSS point out that as a result of inadequate sample size (largely due to difficulties in increasing the field staff), the estimates have had high standard errors and consequently low reliability, in a large number of states. It is difficult to overcome this limitation unless the sample size is increased. Without that, the identification of the factors explaining the incidence of poverty for different size class of urban centres at the state level would have problems of reliability. These would, however, be less vulnerable to sample size and report lower standard error if obtained only at the national level. Keeping this in view, the present paper analyses the variations in the incidence of poverty and for different size class of towns only at the national level.
- 10.
A corresponding decline among non-migrants for the same reason but a sharper decline among non-migrants is likely due to decline in India ’s birth rate.
- 11.
Sainath (2011).
- 12.
- 13.
The new towns generally account for 5–6 % of the urban population. In the absence of any change in definitional parameters of urban centres and the employment structure evolving smoothly, one can hold that the average size of these towns would remain about the same. The fact that the increase in the number of towns in 2011 is six times that of the previous Censuses would then imply about a sixfold increase in the contribution of these towns. By deducting the estimated population of new towns both from the 2001 and 2011 urban population, the growth rate of urban population in the present decade would be significantly less than the previous one. Alternately, if one assumes that the share of the new towns in urban population has remained unchanged, their average size would be very small now. This would imply that the Census of 2011 has identified new urban centres that are of much smaller denomination than in the earlier Censuses, strengthening the thesis of Census activism .
- 14.
GoI (2012).
- 15.
NIUA (2011).
References
Census of India. (1961, 1971, 1991, 2001). Migration tables. New Delhi: Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Government of India.
Chan, K. W., & Buckingham, W. (2008). Is China abolishing the hukou system? The China Quarterly, 195, 582–606.
Dang, A. (1999). Market reforms and internal labour migration in Vietnam. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 8(3), 381.
Deering, K. N., Vickerman, P., Moses, S., Ramesh, B. M., Blanchard, J. F., & Boily, M. C. (2008). The impact of out-migrants and out-migration on the HIV/AIDS epidemic: A case study from south-west India. AIDS, 22(5), S165–S181.
Devnath, A., & Roy, N. (2013). Linkage between internal migration and crime: Evidence from India. International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 41(3), 203.
Ellerman, D. (2003). Policy research on migration and development (Policy Research Working Paper No 3117). Washington, DC: World Bank.
Government of India. (2008). Eleventh five year plan (2007–2012): Inclusive growth, Planning Commission, Government of India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Government of India. (2011). Faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth: An approach to the twelfth five year plan (2012–17), Planning Commission, Government of India. New Delhi: India Offset Press.
Government of India. (2012). Jawaharlal Nehru national urban renewal mission: Overview. Ministry of Urban Employment and Poverty Alleviation and Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India. http://jnnurm.nic.in. Accessed on 1 July 2012.
Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. (2003). A national strategy for economic growth, poverty reduction and social development. Dhaka: Economic Relations Division, Ministry of Finance.
Kahn, J. (2005, November 3). China to drop urbanite-peasant legal differences. The New York Times. Source: www.nytimes.com
Kundu, A. (2004). Provision of tenurial security for the urban poor in Delhi: Recent trends and future perspectives. Nairobi: Habitat International.
Kundu, A. (2007). Dynamics of growth and process of degenerated peripheralization in Delhi: An analysis of socio-economic segmentation and differentiation in micro-environment. In P. J. Marcotullio & G. McGranahan (Eds.), Scaling urban environmental challenges: From local to global and back. London: Earthscan.
Kundu, A. (2012a). Globalization and urban growth in the developing world with special reference to Asian countries. In N. Brooks, K. Donaghy, & G. Knaap (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of urban economics and planning. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kundu, A. (2012b, October 1). Method in madness: Urban data from 2011 census. Commentary. Economic and Political Weekly, 46(40), 13.
Kundu, A. (2013). Making Indian cities slumfree: Visions and operationalisation. Economic and Political Weekly, LVIII(17), 15.
Kundu, A., & Kundu, D. (2012). Globalization and exclusionary urban growth in Asian countries. In J. Beall, B. Guha-Khasnobis, & R. Kanbur (Eds.), Urbanization and development in Asia: Multidisciplinary perspectives. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Kundu, A., & Sarangi, N. (2007). Migration, Employment Status and Poverty. Economic and Political Weekly, XLII(4), 299.
Kundu, A., & Saraswati, L. R. (2012). Migration and exclusionary urbanisation in India. Economic and Political Weekly, XLVII(26 & 27), 13–16.
Munir, H. M. R. (2002). Population and development in Indonesia. Jakarta: National Economic and Social Development Board.
NIUA. (2011). Report on Indian urban infrastructure and services, the High Powered Expert Committee (HPEC) for estimating the investment requirements for urban infrastructure services. New Delhi: National Institute of Urban Affairs.
NSSO. (2001). Migration in India 1999–2000. New Delhi: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India.
NSSO. (2010). Migration in India 2007–2008. New Delhi: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India.
Ooi, G. L., & Phua, K. H. (2007). Urbanisation and slum formation. Journal of Urban Health, 84(1), 27–34.
Piel, G. (1997). The urbanisation of poverty worldwide. Challenge, 40(1), 58–68.
Ratho, R. K., Mishra, B., & Singh, T. (2005). Measles outbreak in a migrant population. Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 72(10), 893–894.
Reuters. (2005, November 2). Rural migrants to get more rights in China. International Herald Tribune. Source: www.iht.com
Riskin, C. (2007). Explaining China’s changing income distribution: Market forces vs. social benefits. Paper presented in the international conference on policy perspectives on growth, economic structures and poverty reduction, 7–9 June, Beijing.
Saggurti, N., Verma, R. K., Jain, A., et al. (2009). HIV risk behaviours among contracted and non-contracted male migrant workers in India: Potential role of labour contractors and contractual systems in HIV prevention. AIDS, 22(5), S127–S136.
Saggurti, N., Mahapatra, B., Sabarwal, S., Ghosh, S., & Johri, A. (2012). Male out-migration: A factor for the spread of HIV infection among married men and women in rural India. PLoS ONE, 7(9), e43222.
Sainath, P. (2011, September 25). Census findings point to decade of rural distress. The Hindu.
Satterthwaite, D. (2008). Understanding Asian cities: A synthesis of the findings from eight city case studies. Global Urban Development Magazine, 4(2), 1–24.
Sharma, R. (2006). Prevention of crime and community policing in India: An empirical evaluation of the strategies and practices of the Delhi police. The Police Journal, 79(1), 43–76.
Song, Y., Zenou, Y., & Ding, C. (2007). Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water: The role of urban villages in housing rural migrants in China. Urban Studies, 45(2), 313.
UN Habitat. (2008). The state of the world’s cities 2008–09: Harmonious cities. London/Sterling: UN Habitat/Earthscan.
UNCHS. (1996). Global report on human settlements. Prepared by the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements.
United Nations. (2000). World population monitoring. New York: Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division.
Wang, F.-L. (2005). Brewing tensions while maintaining stabilities: The dual role of the Hukou system in contemporary China. Asian Perspective, 29(4), 85.
Webster, D. R. (2004). Urbanization dynamics and policy frameworks in developing East Asia. Washington: The World Bank, East Asia Infrastructure Department.
Westendoff, D. G. (2008). Security of housing tenure in People’s Republic of China: Background, trends and issues. In D. Mahadevia (Ed.), Inside the transforming urban Asia: Processes, policies and public actions. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Co.
World Bank. (2009). World development report 2009: Reshaping economic geography. New York: Oxford University Press.
Yadav, G. (2004). Crimes among migrant labour in Punjab. In K. G. Iyer (Ed.), Distressed migrant labour in India: Key human rights issues. New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers and Distributors.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kundu, A., Saraswati, L.R. (2016). Changing Patterns of Migration in India: A Perspective on Urban Exclusion. In: White, M. (eds) International Handbook of Migration and Population Distribution. International Handbooks of Population, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7282-2_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7282-2_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-017-7281-5
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-7282-2
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)