Rural to Urban Migration: A District‐Level Analysis for India

The present paper aims to analyse the total and sex-wise causes of rural-urban migration among the states and union territories of India. The study also highlights on the socio-economic determinants of rural-urban migration in short, medium and long distance migration-streams, categorized on the basis of migration defining boundaries. The entire research work is based on secondary sources of data, collected from Census of India publications , New Delhi. The boundary of a state/ union territory (UT) has been taken as the smallest unit of study.

Disparity of development between rural and urban areas pushes the rural people towards urban areas. The poverty induced rural-urban migration has increased urban poverty, slums, crime inequalities and exploitation and, over all, degradation of urban life on one hand, and on the other hand supply region Rural areas have failed to upgrade their livelihood. Among all of the migration streams, intra-state migration dominates interstate, migration is male dominated and economically motivated. Statewise migration data do not show any direct relationship between economic development of the state and their rural-urban migration. Analysis of the size growth reveals that hierarchy of urban centers and their settlement distribution have become highly skewed over time and imbalance and inequalities reached their highest form within the centers according to their size. Large metropolitan cities have grown unparallel at fast rate. Large groups of landless, unskilled, illiterate people from rural economy leave their home and go to the cities or large towns like Mumbai, Delhi. The rural migrants do not prefer to go to neighbouring small towns because their absorption capacity is limited.

The recent migration data from 64th round NSSO (2007-08) and census 2011 shows rapid increase in internal migration in India. The migration rate (proportion of migrants in the population) in the urban areas (35 percent) was far higher than the migration rate in the rural areas (26 percent). Among the migrants in the rural areas, nearly 91 percent have migrated from the rural areas and 8 percent from the urban areas: where as among the migrants in the urban areas, 59 percent migrated from the rural areas and 40 percent from urban areas. Hence rural-urban migration plays a very significant role, so far as migration stream is concerned.

IAEME PUBLICATION, 2020

“Migration is the barometer of changing socio-economic and political conditions at the national and international levels” (Razi, S., p. 3, 2014). There are various factors which has compelled people to migrate from one place to another. However, these factors may vary from country to country and from place to place. It may also vary from state to state within a country. In a developing country like India, migration mostly take place due to some factors like poverty, unemployment, natural calamities and underdevelopment at the place from where people migrate to some other places. In India internal mobility is still seem to be very critical to the livelihoods of many people, especially those living in rural parts of the country. People from rural areas migrate to nearby urban centres or cities mostly in search of better earning opportunities. It is expected that the percentage of urban population in India which was only 17 per cent of the total population in 1951 would jump to around 42.5 per cent of the total population by 2025 (Razi, S., 2014). The present paper, therefore, is an attempt to study the various causes and trends of migration with a special focus on rural-urban migration in India

Indian Journal of Economics and Development, 2019

Based on the Census reports this work analyses the significance of Rural-Urban migration in India since 2001. It attempts to show how rural-urban movement is the most important livelihood strategy among all the migration patterns. The examined data reveals that since liberalisation, the population of the country has increased by 43.8% and the fraction of migrants has gone up by 10%. Over 37% of the country’s population are migrants but figures could be misleading because around half of all migrants move for marital reasons.

IDS Bulletin, 1997

I Introduction It is often argued that migrants from rural areas form only a small part of current developing coun-tries' urban population growth. Still, they consti-tute a significant group for the cities' economies, and, possibly, for poverty reduction policies. And urbanisation is ...

2012

The present paper investigates the geographical patterns of socio-economic causes of rural out-migration among the states and union territories of India. The study is based on secondary sources of data, collected from census of India publications (2001), New Delhi. The boundary of a state/union territory has been considered as the smallest unit of study. The overall analysis of the study reveals that majority of the rural migrants (62.49 percent) migrated from the rural areas to other states and UTs of the country due to social factors. It is also found that work/employment accounted for 35.88 percent and migration for business 1.9 percent of the total rural out-migration in the country. The study also depicts that there is a wide range of variation in the spatial patterns of rural out-migration for different reasons. The high rate of rural out-migration for employment is witnessed from the central-eastern states and low from the north-eastern states, while, the high rate of rural o...

2017

The present paper tries to investigate the relevant determinants of rural to urban migration in large agglomerations/cities in India. OLS regression analysis is used in this paper to analyse data pertaining to 51 large cities in India by using data from Census of India and unit level data of National Sample Survey (NSS) on employment and unemployment and consumption expenditure data. The OLS regression results show that city-wise employment and unemployment situation (measured by male self employed, not in labour force male, male casual labourer) have a negative impact on city level rural to urban migration. The level of poverty (measured by poverty head count ratio) and inequality conditions (measured by Gini coefficients) of a city also has a negative impact. However, infrastructure condition (availability of total number of electricity connection) of a city has a positive impact on city-wise rural to urban migration. Economic conditions also matters higher level of rural to urban...

Journal of emerging technologies and innovative research, 2018

Agricultural sector in India is suffering from surplus labor and low productivity leading to disguised unemployment. This results in distress migration from rural to urban areas. As a public policy concern, growth of the non-farm sector is seen as a holistic measure to check this type of migration. An increase in the number of census towns indicates a rise in the non-farm sector. However, the past decade has also witnessed an increase in migration from rural to urban areas. Moreover, the employment in the non-farm sector has remained stagnant during the same period. Several reasons can possibly explain such complexities. Inequalities have remained high in rural areas in terms of income, consumption and social ostracism. Access to credit by rural workforce is challenged by class and caste differences denying benefit to a large portion of rural populace. But increasing numbers of rural youth are also migrating for pursuing higher education. This paper critically analyses the trends in...

The present study aims to analyse the interstate variations in the volume of rural outmigration and levels of deprivation and to examine the causal relationship between rural out-migration and selected socio-economic variables of deprivation among the states and union territories (UTs) of India. The entire research work is based on secondary sources of data, collected from the office of the Registrar General of India, State Primary Census Abstract, 2001, SRS Bulletins of 2008 and Planning Commission of India, 2004. The boundary of a state/union territory has been taken as the smallest unit of study.