Reverse migration
Topic: Employment, Unemployment and Informalisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
Reverse migration means migrant workers return from cities to their home villages. It usually happens when urban jobs suddenly disappear. It shows how weak the job security and social protection of migrant workers are. It also pushes structural change backwards, because workers go back to farming.
Example
During the 2020 COVID lockdown, millions of migrant workers left cities for their villages. MGNREGA gave many of them work and acted as a cushion. Agriculture's share of the workforce rose in 2019-21, a reversal of the usual shift away from farming.
Don't confuse with
- Circular migration: circular migrants return home every year, in a planned seasonal pattern. Reverse migration is a return forced by a shock, and it may not reverse again soon.
Related concepts
- Unemployment
- Open unemployment
- Disguised unemployment
- Underemployment
- Seasonal unemployment
- Educated unemployment
- Youth unemployment
- Rural-urban migration
- Circular migration
- Distress migration