Migration: internal streams, seasonal migrants, the diaspora and remittances

Detail

1. Why migration belongs in a population chapter

• Migration means people moving from one place to another and settling there for some time.
• The class 12 migration chapter was dropped when NCERT cut its syllabus. The topic still links to population growth.
• Induced component of growth: the change in an area's population caused by people moving in (in-migration) or out (out-migration). The other part, the natural component, is births minus deaths.
• Example: a city grows even if its birth rate is low, because people keep arriving from villages.

2. How the Census counts a migrant

Basis	Who counts as a migrant	What it shows
Place of birth (POB)	Anyone counted somewhere other than where they were born	Lifetime moves; misses people who moved and later came back
Place of last residence (POLR)	Anyone whose last home was somewhere other than where they are counted	Recent moves; gives a better picture of current flows

• The Census also records duration of residence (how long the person has lived at the new place) and reason for migration: work, business, education, marriage, moved after birth, moved with household, and others.
• These figures are published in the Census 2011 D-series migration tables. Examples are D-02 (migrants by place of last residence and duration), D-03 (migrants by reason) and D-07 (migrants who moved for work, by education level) [6].

3. Census 2011: the headline numbers

• About 45.6 crore migrants by place of last residence, about 37% of the population (Census 2011).
• Most migrants were women. The main reason was marriage. In India a woman usually moves to her husband's home (patrilocal residence).
• Most moves were within the same state. Movement inside a state is far larger than movement between states.
• Inter-state migrant workers numbered 4,14,22,917 (about 4.14 crore) in Census 2011 [7].
• Reasons differ by sex:
• Women: mostly marriage.
• Men: mostly work or employment. This covers looking for a job or a better job, taking up a job or business, transfers, and losing a job at home [7].

4. Migration streams

A migration stream is a flow of people between two kinds of places.

Stream	Size and who moves	Main reason
Rural → rural	Largest stream; mostly women	Marriage; farm labour
Rural → urban	Mostly men; growing	Jobs and wages in cities
Urban → urban	Educated workers and professionals	Better jobs, transfers
Urban → rural	Smallest stream	Return home, retirement, job loss

• Rural-to-urban migration feeds city growth, slums and the informal sector. Its effects on source areas, destinations and cities are covered under geographical-issues-problems.

5. Main inter-state flows

Source states (out-migration)	Destination states and UTs (in-migration)
Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha	Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka; more and more Kerala and Tamil Nadu

• The pattern: people move from the poorer, more crowded northern and eastern states to the industrial and service-sector states in the west and south, and to the National Capital Region.
• Kerala sends many of its own workers to the Gulf. At the same time it now takes in workers from Bihar, West Bengal, Odisha and Assam. This is called replacement migration: outsiders fill jobs left by people who emigrated.

6. Causes: push and pull

• Push factors (things that drive people out of the source area): poverty, landlessness, floods and droughts, low farm wages, too many people on the land, few jobs off the farm.
• Pull factors (things that draw people to a destination): jobs, higher wages, education, health care, city amenities.
• How it plays out:
• A farm in Bihar produces too little and pays poorly → the young men leave for factories in Surat or building sites in Delhi → they send money home → their family's spending and social standing change.

7. Seasonal and circular migration

• Seasonal migration: people leave home for a short spell each year, often 2-6 months, usually in the farm lean season, and then come back.
• Circular migration: people move back and forth again and again between home and work. They never settle at the destination.
• Source areas: Bihar, Odisha (especially Bolangir and Nuapada in western Odisha), Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
• Destinations and work: brick kilns (Western Odisha workers often go to kilns in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh), farm work in Punjab and Haryana at harvest time, construction sites, and factories.
• Undercounting: the Census records where people are on one date. Short-term migrants are often at home on that date, so the Census and household surveys miss many of them.
• Economic Survey 2016-17 used railway passenger data to estimate about 9 million inter-state migrants a year (2011-2016).

8. The 2020 reverse migration

• Reverse migration: people moving back from the place they migrated to, here from cities to their home villages.
• What happened: the COVID-19 lockdown (March 2020) shut factories and building sites → migrant workers lost their pay and their rented rooms → huge numbers went back to villages in UP, Bihar, Odisha and other states, many on foot.
• What it showed: migrants had little social security (protection such as food rations, health cover and pensions). Their benefits were also not portable: a ration card worked only in the home state.
• Policy responses:
• One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC): a migrant can collect subsidised food grain at any ration shop in India. ONORC is linked to e-Shram, and about 23.89 crore e-Shram registrants are using ONORC benefits [4].
• e-Shram portal (launched 2021): a national register (database) of unorganised workers, meaning workers with no formal job contract. Construction workers, migrants, domestic workers, and gig and platform workers can sign up. Each worker gets a 12-digit Universal Account Number (UAN) that stays the same for life [4][8].
  • Registrations passed 30.68 crore. Women made up 53.68% (2025) [9].
• PM Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan (2020): a public-works job campaign for workers who returned to selected districts.
• Rental-housing schemes: cheap rented homes for urban migrants.
• See employment-informal-sector for more.

9. International migration: three phases

(a) Indentured labour, 1834-1917

• Indentured labour: workers sign a fixed-term contract (an indenture) to work for an employer abroad, usually on a plantation, in return for their passage and a wage.
• This began after Britain abolished slavery in 1834, when plantations needed new workers. It ended in 1917.
• More than a million Indians went, mostly from Bihar and eastern UP (Bhojpuri-speaking areas), and also from south India (Tamil and Telugu regions).

Destination	Location	Crop
Mauritius	Indian Ocean	Sugarcane
Fiji	South Pacific Ocean	Sugarcane
Guyana, Suriname	North-east coast of South America	Sugarcane
Trinidad	Caribbean Sea	Sugarcane, cocoa
South Africa (Natal)	South-east Africa	Sugarcane

• Link: plantations in primary-activities-world.

(b) Gulf migration, from the 1970s

• The cause: oil prices jumped in the 1970s → oil money paid for building work in the Gulf → demand for semi-skilled and unskilled workers.
• Where the workers came from: mainly Kerala and Tamil Nadu, and later UP and Bihar.
• Where they went: the six GCC states (Gulf Cooperation Council: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain).
• About 9 million Indians live in the GCC, India's largest overseas concentration.
• Most work on short contracts and cannot become citizens, so they return home in the end.

(c) Skilled and student migration

• Doctors, engineers, IT professionals and, more and more, students go to the US, UK, Canada and Australia.
• Brain drain means the loss of skilled people to other countries. The flow back of money, skills and contacts is called brain gain.

10. The Indian diaspora

• Diaspora: people of a country's origin who live abroad.
• NRI (Non-Resident Indian): an Indian citizen living abroad.

• PIO (Person of Indian Origin): a person of Indian descent who holds a foreign passport. Most PIOs now hold an OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) card.

• The Indian diaspora (NRIs plus PIOs) is about 35 million, the world's largest.

• Old diaspora: the PIOs of the indenture countries.
• New diaspora: Gulf workers (NRIs) and professionals in the West.

11. Remittances

• Remittances: money that migrants send home to their families.
• How much:
• India is the world's largest recipient: US$ 135.4 billion in FY 2024-25 [2]. (NCERT-derived range: US$ 120-135 billion a year.)
• US$ 118.7 billion in 2023-24, more than double the US$ 55.6 billion of 2010-11 [3].

• Remittances to all low- and middle-income countries were expected to reach US$ 685 billion in 2024. This was more than FDI (foreign direct investment) and official aid combined [5].

• Where the money comes from (RBI 6th Remittances Survey, 2023-24) [3]:

Source	Share (2023-24)
United States	27.7% (23.4% in 2020-21)
UAE	19.2% (18% in 2020-21)
United Kingdom	10.8% (6.8% in 2020-21)
Saudi Arabia	6.7%
All GCC countries	38%
Advanced economies (US, UK, Singapore, Canada, Australia, etc.)	More than 50%

• The shift: advanced economies now send more than the GCC. This reflects more skilled Indians and students going to work in technology and business roles [3].
• Which states receive it (2023-24) [3]:

• Maharashtra 20.5% > Kerala 19.7% > Tamil Nadu 10.4% > Telangana 8.1% > Karnataka 7.7%.

• How families spend it: daily needs, health, schooling, buying land, building houses and farm investment.

• Remittances also help India's balance of payments (its account of money flowing in and out of the country).

12. Kerala: a case study

• The Kerala Migration Survey is a repeated survey of the state's emigrants.
• It shows how much of Kerala's economy rests on the Gulf: remittances, house building, consumer spending and many households headed by women while the men work abroad.
• New trend: young people now leave as students for the UK, Canada, Australia and Europe. Fewer go as workers to the Gulf. This matches the rising share of remittances from advanced economies [3].

Prelims Hooks

• Census counts migrants by place of birth and by place of last residence. The headline 2011 figure (about 45.6 crore, about 37%) is by place of last residence.
• Largest stream: rural → rural, mostly women moving on marriage. Smallest: urban → rural.
• Main reason for migration: marriage for women, work for men. Intra-state moves are far larger than inter-state moves.
• Inter-state migrant workers in Census 2011: about 4.14 crore [7].
• Economic Survey 2016-17 estimated about 9 million inter-state migrants a year using railway data.
• e-Shram (2021) gives each unorganised worker a 12-digit UAN that stays the same for life [4]. Women are 53.68% of registrants [9].
• Indentured labour (1834-1917) destinations included Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Trinidad, Suriname and South Africa. Trap: the Gulf was never an indenture destination; Gulf migration began with the 1970s oil boom.
• Remittance sources, 2023-24: US (27.7%) > UAE (19.2%) > UK (10.8%) > Saudi Arabia (6.7%) [3].
• Remittance receiving states, 2023-24: Maharashtra > Kerala > Tamil Nadu > Telangana > Karnataka [3]. Trap: Kerala is not first.
• India is the world's largest remittance recipient: US$ 135.4 billion in FY25 [2].

Mains Points

• Spatial pattern and causes:
• Out-migration from the poorer, more crowded Ganga plain and eastern states (UP, Bihar, Odisha, MP, Rajasthan) to industrial and service states (Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu).
• It is driven by push factors (landlessness, floods, low wages) and pull factors (jobs, wages).

• It is the main source of the induced component of urban growth.

• Invisible and unprotected seasonal migrants:

• Undercounting by the Census (2011) and the lack of portable benefits left them exposed in the 2020 reverse migration.
• Policy responses: ONORC, e-Shram (more than 30 crore registered, 2025) [9], PMGKRA and rental housing.

• Gaps remain in housing, health cover and voting rights at the place of work.

• Remittances as a development resource:

• US$ 135.4 billion in FY25 [2] supports household spending, education and housing in Kerala and Maharashtra, and steadies the balance of payments.

• The risk is too much dependence on the Gulf. That dependence is falling as the source mix shifts to advanced economies (more than 50% in 2023-24) [3].

• The diaspora as soft power and a link to India:

• The old indentured diaspora (Mauritius, Fiji, the Caribbean) and the new skilled and Gulf diaspora (about 35 million in all) shape trade, investment and foreign policy.
• Brain drain against brain gain is still a policy question.