In the recent decades, Kerala has emerged as a prominent migrant hotspot with a growing significance in India’s migration story. While migration away from Kerala has often been written about and discussed, the large influx of workers into Kerala has received much lesser attention. It is estimated that Kerala has over 2.5 million migrant workers from other states of India, and from Bangladesh and Nepal - a number that is notably close to about 7 per cent of the state’s current population. A review of the macro-economic indicators of the Kerala economy suggests that a major demographic transition in the state caused due to declining fertility rates and an increasingly ageing population significantly reduced the overall availability of labour supply, accentuating in-migration. Paradoxically high unemployment rates have also been a persistent feature of Kerala’s development trajectory.
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