Rural to Urban Migration: A District Level Analysis for India

Mitra Arup and Mayumi Murayama

No 137, IDE Discussion Papers from Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO)

Abstract: Based on the recent census data this paper analyses the district level rural to urbanmigration rates (both intra-state and the inter-state) among males and femalesseparately. Both the rates are closely associated irrespective of whether the migrants originate from the rural areas within the state or outside the state. This would suggest that women usually migrate as accompanists of the males. Though many ofthe relatively poor and backward states actually show large population mobility,which is primarily in search of a livelihood, the mobility of male population is also seen to be prominent in the relatively advanced states like Maharashtra and Gujarat. Rapid migration of rural females within the boundaries of the states is, however, evident across most of the regions. The social networks, which play an important role in the context of migration are prevalent among the short distance migrants and tend to lose their significance with a rise in the distance between the place of origin and destination though there are some exceptions to this phenomenon. Besides the north-south divide in theIndian context is indeed a significant phenomenon with a few exceptions ofmetropolitan cities. As regards the effect of factors at the place of destination, prospects for better job opportunities are a major determinant of male migration. Low castes and minority groups tend to pull migration through network effects. Among females also these effects are evidentthough with the inclusion of the male migration rate they become lesssignificant. Finally the paper brings out the policy implications.

Keywords: Rural-to-urban migration; Poverty; India; 2001 census; Gender; Population movement; 農村-都市移動; 移住; 貧困; インド; 2001センサス; ジェンダー; 人口移動 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J61 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-03-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cwa, nep-dev, nep-geo, nep-mig and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

Published in IDE Discussion Paper = IDE Discussion Paper, No. 137. 2008-03-01

Downloads: (external link)
https://ir.ide.go.jp/record/38030/files/IDP000137_001.pdf First version, 2008 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jet:dpaper:dpaper137

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Publication Office, IDE 3-2-2 Wakaba, Mihama-ku, Chiba-shi, Chiba 261-8545 JAPAN
http://www.ide.go.jp/English/Publish/Order

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IDE Discussion Papers from Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Michitaka Imamitsu ().