The video presents the short film ' Conversations with Sharecroppers and Farmers in North Gujarat. This film was made to compliment Aajeevika Bureau and Kotda Adivasi Sansthan's combined virtual sharing of findings from a study Labour Partners or Indebted Migrant Workers? Analyzing the Sharecropping System in North Gujarat' by Prof Tara Nair. The film provides a brief insight into the world of the Bhagya system in the region, from the perspective of both farmers and sharecroppers.
Migrant workers, especially those whose movements are temporary, comprise of some of the most vulnerable and disenfranchised groups in India in need of serious and creative policy attention. The challenges faced by these workers during the lockdown that was imposed to curb the spread of COVID-19 have highlighted the urgency of universalizing the Decent Work Agenda. The lockdown has revealed that the migrant workforce in India is already highly vulnerable, with few safety nets, and requires the state to intervene on multiple fronts. Crises and shocks like COVID-19 are bound to have a deep and long-standing impact on migrant workers’ employment and social protection.
Due to these worsening working conditions, many workers who had come back from their home villages and towns in rural areas, are now going back. Work seems to be harsher and more mercenary than before, social security remains a myth, the laws and bureaucratic procedures offer little protection or redress, and other work and income options also remain elusive. The new labour code it seems will make protection against exploitation more elusive, collective bargaining more difficult, and worker-employer relationships more commoditified. The unconscionable treatment received by migrant workers when the lockdown was imposed, the shaky ability of the state to provide reasonable social protection, and continued apathy towards the rights of workers, points towards an inclination of the state to embrace economic growth at the cost of ensuring better wage standards and holding the industry accountable to meet its obligations towards better working conditions. The Indian state needs to change its priorities to impose fairer wage standards, ensure compliance of better working conditions, and improve access to social protection.
Inter-state migrant workers have become an important and integral part of the economy of the southern Indian state Kerala. The state is estimated to have about 3.5 million workers from other states in 2018. The commercial capital and industrial hub of Kerala, Ernakulam district has been historically the most attractive destination for inter-state migrant workers in Kerala. However, there is only limited empirical evidence available about the migrant workers in the district. The district was catastrophically affected by the natural disasters that had occurred in August 2018. In order to evolve evidence-informed interventions Welfare Services conducted a baseline sample survey in their target geography in Ernakulam district during the period from November 18, 2019 to January 02, 2020, in partnership with Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development. Findings revealed that in addition to Tamil Nadu which historically has been supplying migrant labour to Kerala, West Bengal, Assam and Odisha have emerged as major labour migration corridors with Kerala. Migrant labourers belonged to socially and economically disadvantaged communities who had limited employment opportunities beyond agriculture/agricultural labour at native places.
The survey analyzed the status of food security, hunger, and indebtedness. The impact on all farm livelihood options (production and sale) were studied. There was an inquiry into the mental wellbeing and access to health services. The survey is aimed at investigating the impact of the pandemic on a regular monthly basis.
Direct Benefit Transfer was recommended as an immediate COVID relief measure to the poor that will also help deal with the slowdown in the economy. Cash transfer to Jan Dhan account holders was one of the measures under Rs 1.76 lakh crore relief package announced by the Finance Minister. Five hundred rupees was planned to be transferred to 200 million women Jan Dhan account holders. There has been significant improvement in state capacity to transfer money due to JAM (short for Jan Dhan-AadhaarMobile) trinity. However, there has been reports of dormant Jan Dhan accounts and last mile glitches in withdrawal of money by poor especially in remote areas. Rapid Community Response to COVID-19 (RCRC) coalition decided to conduct a rapid assessment survey of Jan Dhan accounts, disbursal and withdrawal of five hundred rupees. It was piloted in Alwar by Ibtada. After this RCRC coalition decided to do it in different parts of country to have a comprehensive pan India view of the status of the Rs 500 relief package announced for women Jan Dhan account holders.
Thuamul Rampur, Odisha, India, with the largest proportion of Scheduled Tribes and the lowest level of literacy among the Community Development Blocks in Kalahandi district, has been witnessing large-scale, long-distance labour migration of young men, particularly to the southern Indian states., As part of understanding and addressing the livelihood challenges, Gram Vikas in partnership with the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID) conducted a qualitative research during May 2019 to understand the challenges of the labour migrants from Thuamul Rampur and their families left behind. The migration of men from the poor rural households appears to have reduced the access to quality health services for the left-behind families. Lack of convenient telecommunication and banking facilities. result in wastage of time, resources and disrupt communication between migrants and their families
With four in every five households below poverty line, Thuamul Rampur has the highest incidence of poverty among the community development blocks of Kalahandi district of Odisha. The block, which also has the largest proportion of Scheduled Tribes among the community development blocks in Kalahandi, has been witnessing substantial migration of young men for work, particularly to the southern Indian states. With its presence in Thuamul Rampur since 1984, Gram Vikas has been closely observing the ever-increasing migration from the block. Verifying the insights gathered from a qualitative exploration conducted in 2018, Gram Vikas, in partnership with Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID), undertook a comprehensive study of the labour migration from Thuamul Rampur during 2019-2020. Although for households of Thuamul Rampur, migration is an avenue towards empowerment, currently it is unsafe and informal given their limited agency, poor access to public services and lack of social security at the destination. This calls for concerted efforts of the state and non-state actors to promote migration as a safe and informed choice for improving the resilience of the households and reviving the village economies. At the same time, diverse opportunities need to be created locally to prevent distress migration.
The districts of Kalahandi, Balangir and Koraput, commonly referred to as the KBK districts, which are among the most backward districts of the country, contribute significantly to the labour migration from the state. Thuamul Rampur, Odisha with the largest proportion of Scheduled Tribes and the lowest level of literacy among the Community Development Blocks in Kalahandi district, has been witnessing large-scale, long distance labour migration of young men, particularly to the southern Indian states.3,4 Gram Vikas, in partnership with the Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development (CMID) conducted a rapid assessment following up a robust random sample of migrant workers from Thuamul Rampur to understand the initial impact of the lockdown on migrant labourers from Kalahandi whose remittances play a pivotal role in the local economy.
This report particularly brings attention to “semi-permanent” migrants - those that have no intention of leaving, yet, despite years of residence, are also not fully integrated in social protection where they are. It brings out how the domestic workers survived the lock down and the impact it caused on them.
Kerala is currently experiencing advanced demographic transition. The mortality and fertility levels have touched near saturation bottom levels and migration plays a critical role in shaping the future demographic scenario. This has policy implications for the state’s economy
The publication is intended to help contribute to the work of policy planners, experts, and practitioners in the region. We hope that this volume, including the statistical annexes on labor migration stocks and fl ows, proves useful to readers.
In Southeast Asia, labour migration is an integral component of regional economic integration. The ASEAN economic community (AEC) has envisioned a single market and production base for ASEAN. As most states in ASEAN are developing economies, there are understandably concerns that free movement of people would affect employment and wages of migrant destination countries in the region. Suffice How to deal with demands and pressures of labour migration will remain an important agenda for regional economic integration in Southeast Asia.
The thrust of this report is to look at the architecture of laws and schemes at the federal and state levels to ensure that there are no barriers to free voluntary movement of people across the country, no restrictions on them to be fully able to take advantage of the opportunities, wherever they may be available in India. This Working Group report, though not necessarily organised along these lines, focuses on five major issues: Integration, Portability, Convergence, Public Access, Data.
This report assesses and maps 184 peer-reviewed, empirical research articles selected for their focus on linkages between water stress and human migration. First and most importantly, this literature asserts that migration is universal. Migration is an extremely common social process and is normal in almost every society on earth. Safe, orderly and regular migration can and do benefit both home and host communities. Environment- influenced migration is rarely, if ever, a resource threat to the regions to which people move.
The report says that thousands of workers from organised and unorganised sectors participated in road rokkos in various parts of Chennai yesterday.
The report says that drawn-out wage negotiations by the Chanda Cement Works Employees Union (CCWEU) have resulted in the signing of memorandum of understanding with a contractor at ACC Ltd, a Lafarge Holcim plant in India’s Chandrapur district.
The report says that almost every year, we hear complaints about India’s high corporate tax rates from corporate lobby groups in the run-up to the budget.
The Union labour ministry recently issued a draft notification that would allow fixed-term employment across sectors and also approved moves by some states to amend the Industrial Disputes Act.
The report says that the state of Karnataka is often referred to as the textile capital of India, being the site of 20% of the national garment production and 8% of all Indian garment exports.
The report says that global economic growth increased to 3.6 per cent in 2017, after hitting a six-year low of 3.2 per cent in 2016.
In order to assess the climate change, environmental degradation and migration nexus in South Asia, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has undertaken research, including an assessment study, field research and national consultations in Bangladesh, the Maldives and Nepal to establish the evidence base and raise awareness on the subject. Bangladesh, the Maldives and Nepal have been selected for this project because of their commonalities, including high rates of urbanization and international migration (though the Maldives is an exception as it experiences net in-migration) and their high levels of exposure to diverse climatic events. The experiences of these three countries provide lessons for the region, as other countries in South Asia face similar challenges relating to environmental degradation and climate change.
Even though labour migraton has never featured more prominently within ASEAN than it does today, there remains a dearth of reliable data that can be applied for the development of evidence-based policy and programming. While assumptions are often made about the end result of migration in ASEAN and how best to ensure a safe and rewarding experience for migrant workers, the collecton and analysis of empirical data has been very limited. Due to the temporary and irregular nature of much of the migraton occurring within the region, the realites faced by migrant workers are ofen hidden from view. This study helps to fll the knowledge gap on the socio-economic outcomes of migration into low-skilled work within ASEAN.
Climate change is having devastating impacts on communities’ lives, livelihoods and food security across South Asia. Its consequences are so severe that it is increasingly contributing to migration, and this incidence is likely to escalate much more in the years to come as climate change impacts become more serious.
A qualitative inquiry was undertaken during 2016-2017 to provide insights into the profile of migrant labourers in Kerala, the sectors in which they are employed and the spatial distribution of these workers within the state. Two researchers with advanced degree in migration studies, and who speak at least four Indian languages including Tamil, Hindi, Bengali and Malayalam, travelled over 11,500, kilometres across 14 districts during the period from November 2016 to May 2017, collecting data from nearly 900 Key Informants. The data on source districts elicited by the researchers were analysed to understand the migration patterns. As part of data triangulation, one of the researchers also visited Murshidabad district in West Bengal which is one of the major sources of migration to Kerala.
The study draws on a combination of in-depth interviews and analysis of survey data collected by IOM.1 The survey data is based on a simple questionnaire administered to 2,813 migrants upon return to Bangladesh. It captures demographic data, key features of the migration experience, as well as returning migrants’ future intentions and aspirations regarding migration and other livelihood opportunities. To complement the survey findings with qualitative insights about the process of reintegration, in-depth interviews were conducted with 22 migrants in two districts of Bangladesh where the highest numbers of migrants involved in the Andaman Sea Crisis originated (Cox’s Bazar and Narsingdi). These additional interviews were conducted around four to six months following their return to Bangladesh. The study concentrates on the experiences of Bangladeshi migrants who were involved in the Andaman Sea Crisis, as this is the group that have been assisted to return to Bangladesh by IOM. The research has been undertaken to inform new initiatives aimed at supporting the sustainable reintegration for returning migrants, building the resilience of individuals and their home communities, and promoting safe migration pathways.
International labor migration is an increasingly important livelihood strategy in Nepal. There is little documentation of the movements of migrant workers or of their remittances. It is estimated that Nepalese migrants send remittances equivalent to about one quarter of Nepal’s gross national product. Migrants and their families lack information about safe migration procedures, host countries, their rights as migrants, and awareness about HIV/AIDS. The present article examines two projects that address these migrants’ needs in their home country and in one destination. The first project is a Nepal-wide radio program based in Kathmandu that provides information on migration issues. The second is a community outreach project based in Delhi, India, focusing on education of migrants.
The most revolutionary step of government of India for rural development is to introduce the largest employment generation programme of MGNREGA 2005, which maintain the workforce all over the rural India with the challenges to Minimum Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing the proportion of people who are live with less than a dollar per day and suffer from abject poverty. The present study tries to analysis the impact of the flagship programme on distress migration of rural western Odisha and how the migrants are availing the socio-economic rights at the workplace and how their future are moving toward the black hole of the society. The study was done on three district of western Odisha (i.e. Bargarh, Bolangir and Sambalpur. The author has successfully found out the challenges and also given some of the suggestion for the further references of the programme.
The migration pattern in India indicates that the percentage of migrants to total enumerated population is consistently declining among both the male and the female population. Employment among males and marriage among females were found to be the most dominant factors behind their movement, irrespective of the type of movement or distance of movement. This paper discusses the emerging migration pattern in India using place of birth and place of last residence concept data. Census data from 1961 to 1991 are used to examine the migration level, reasons for migration by type of migration streams, work force participation rate education level of migrants.
A running theme of this report as well as the Commission's earlier report is on social security to the unprotected unorganised workers. They are, by definition, disadvantaged workers. The degree of disadvantage, if one may say so, varies from segment to segment. The earlier chapter discussed the gender dimension of this disadvantage and its manifestations in terms of the conditions of work, access to capital and earnings. There is yet another segment of disadvantaged workers who perhaps constitute the bottom layer of the working class in the country. These are the migrant workers, particularly the seasonal migrants, child labourers and bonded labourers. These workers are highly vulnerable on account of their lack of physical assets and human capabilities coupled with their initial conditions of extreme poverty and low social status. This results in their low bargaining power in the labour market that further reinforces their already vulnerable state and traps them into a vicious circle of poverty and deprivation. Not only is it more difficult for them to find avenues for gainful work, but it is also harsh when some such work is found. The conditions of work are often miserable, hours of work long, wages meagre and security of work non-existent.
This report is part of a study of labour regimes and labour conditions in two major industries: garments and construction, in India and China. Both these industries are major employers in the two countries, with distinct characteristics. Garments are traded goods and the garment industry is situated in national and global value chains. The location of garment production in global production networks and the nature of global competition are major factors influencing labour standards in different segments of the garment value chain. In comparison, construction is a nontraded good, and is subject to a different logic of production and competition. Both production and labour in both industries are subject to substantial sub-contracting, but in the case of construction, most of this sub-contracting is on-site. This study focuses on labour regimes and labour standards in the construction industry in India and is based on based on fieldwork in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR). The construction industry in India employs the largest number of workers outside agriculture, most of whom are paid workers. In 2011-12, the industry employed 49.9 million workers of whom 44.5 million (89.2 %) were paid workers. By contrast, in the same year, in the garment industry, 71.7 percent of its 9.4 million workers were self-employed in an independent capacity or home workers. Construction takes place as small-scale activity as well as large-scale activity undertaken by organised sector firms in the private or public sector. This study focuses on labour standards and capital-labour relations in large-scale construction activity carried out by first tier organised sector firms, and lower tier sub-contracted formal and informal firms. This report is structured as follows: The changing contours of the construction industry is described in Sections 2 to 4. Sections 5 and 6 describe the fieldwork areas and the survey methodology. The field results are discussed in Section 7 onwards of the report.
Not a day goes by in India without some news related to the Smart Cities Mission, which aims to create 100 ‘smart cities’ in the country by the year 2020. The Mission, one of the most publicized among the many slogan-led schemes of the National Democratic Alliance government, is characterized by ambitious goals, large planned investments, multiple private sector actors, and new governance structures induced by the corporatization of cities. As the Mission completes two years this month (June 2017), now is a good time to examine how it has unfolded and what exactly it means for India’s urban population, especially for the majority of city inhabitants — the ones who make cities and keep them functioning. Housing and Land Rights Network, India (HLRN), therefore, decided to undertake a human rights review of the process and the guidelines of the Smart Cities Mission as well as of the 60 selected Smart City Proposals. Half of the world’s most-polluted cities are in India, one in six urban residents lives in an inadequate settlement (‘slum’), a third of India’s urban population does not have access to tap water, and 84 per cent of urban Indians still do not have access to a toilet. Given this reality, the critical question is whether the country should first focus on creating 100 high-tech urban enclaves or on prioritizing—for every resident— the provision of sufficient and potable water; adequate sanitation services; the highest attainable standard of health; adequate and secure housing; a clean and healthy environment; safe spaces to play, walk, and work in; accessible public transport; and security for women, minorities, and children? There is, thus, a need to evaluate the validity of the Smart Cities Mission as well as the model of development that it envisages.
This literature review assesses the evidence on internal migrants’ participation in social protection schemes. Internal migrants often risk being ineligible for social protection owing to a combination of population registration and residency requirements. However, even when eligible, they may in practice not participate. Reasons for non-participation include complex and costly registration requirements, portability constraints and limited enforcement of official policy rules. Such features interact with additional factors such as sector and nature of employment, which are linked to whether a migrant has a contract. Other factors that affect migrants’ participation in social protection include limited knowledge and awareness of programmes and language barriers.
This working paper seeks to better understand the different forms of exclusion and deprivation experienced by migrants in Indore, the economic centre and largest city of Madhya Pradesh. Four different groups of migrants were targeted: two groups of recent migrants (those less than one year in the city and those over one but less than two); seasonal migrants temporarily in the city; and older migrants settled in the city. These reflect different stages and forms of the migration process and the associated exclusions and challenges that migrants and their families face in terms of access to housing, basic services, social benefits and entitlements, and government identification. The study collected quantitative and qualitative data using questionnaires, focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Since migrants commonly live in informal settlements (bastis) throughout the city, members of women’s slum groups were trained by the Urban Health Resource Centre (UHRC) to help locate and purposively sample appropriate respondents for the survey. In total, 640 respondents were surveyed across the four migrant groups.
The effects of climate change on migration present unprecedented challenges, especially in developing countries (IPCC 2014). India and China are of particular importance due to their population size, climate risks, and global economic influence. This project, designed for the University of Notre Dame Urban Adaptation Assessment initiative, aims to enhance the understanding of climate-induced internal migration in developing countries and the resulting adaptation challenges in urban areas. Using climate migrants as units of analysis, our findings suggest that economic integration, social inclusion, and public service accessibility are important determinants of how well cities are equipped to adapt to the influx of migrants within India and China. To better understand the role of climate-induced internal migration on urban adaptation in China and India, we explore two key questions: 1) are people moving from rural areas to urban centers due to climate change, and 2) if so, what are the resulting challenges of urban planning and development. Literature indicates that people migrate due to either climate stressors (droughts, land degradation, etc.) or shocks (floods, landslides, etc.). We found stressors are more difficult to assess, as their direct effects are often neither acute nor pronounced. Therefore, in this analysis we examine shocks, whose effects are more acute. We conduct in-depth case studies on floods of comparable magnitude in China and India to understand the reasons people do or do not move. We do so with a framework that incorporates socio-economic and political variables as well as factors that hinder or facilitate migration decisions. To add on-the-ground perspectives to this framework and to understand the migrants’ urban experiences, we conducted fieldwork in China and India.
Labour migration from rural to urban areas is a persistent feature of developing countries like India. Mumbai like many big and thriving cities has been attracting a large number of migrants from all over the country. A substantial chunk of the migrants belonging to working poor classes are unable to enter into the legal housing property relations in the city. They are forced to live either on the public spaces such as pavements, by the roadside, etc., or at workplaces, or in slums in shelters of all kinds which do not qualify to be called a home. They conform to the definition developed by the United Nations for the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless in 1987, considering a homeless person is not only someone who lives on the street or in a shelter, but can equally be someone whose shelter or housing fails to meet the basic criteria considered essential for health and human and social development. These criteria include security of tenure, protection against bad weather and personal security, as well as access to sanitary facilities and potable water, education, work, and health services (Speak and Tipple 2006). The condition of homeless is created when people migrating to cities may be in such precarious financial condition that they cannot afford to buy or rent in a house even in a poor locality, or due to the experience of single and multiple evictions without resettlement.
The present state system in South Asia, in particular the state system of the sub-continent, is a result largely of the partitions in the eastern and western parts of the erstwhile united India, giving birth to three states – India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The borders dividing these countries are markers of past bitter history, current separate, distinct, and independent existence, and the sign of the territorial integrity of these states. The bitterness of the past has been exacerbated by the lack of mutual confidence at present. This makes migration across these borders extremely contentious. There is another added dimension to the borders and that is the existence of thousand and one linkages across these borders that make the South Asian borders and migration across it as a unique phenomenon. South Asian borders then are lines of hatred, disunity, informal connections and voluminous informal trade, securitised and militarized lines, heavy para-military presence, communal discord, humanitarian crisis, human rights abuses, and enormous suspicion resulting in making migration a violent affair. Yet migration across these borders never stops.
This paper examines how the poor themselves perceive and react to their situation in an unequal world. It attempts to understand class and caste as lived experiences of the poor through the narratives of poor women in Kerala. Two main findings emerge in the paper. First, the narratives on inequality from the bottom show that the process of adaptation is never complete. Resentment and criticisms against inequality do come up in the minds of the deprived along with feelings of humiliation, helplessness and sadness. However, they are not clearly protesting also. Resentment against inequalities seems to be bounded or contained. Second, the absence of stark forms of ill-treatment or discrimination along with some positive attributes of the rich go a long way towards smoothening the felt aspect of the class divide despite the wide objective segregation of the rich and the poor. Similar to the class experience, some positive interactions and good experiences from the higher castes smoothened the felt experience of caste. The limited nature of the interactions with and help from the higher classes and castes are not questioned.
Seasonal migrant workers contribute significantly to the national, State and urban economy, and yet they remain on the extreme margins in their urban work destinations, living in dismal housing conditions on construction sites or in the most vulnerable informal settlements and tenure arrangements off-site. Access to basic services like water and sanitation is lacking or profoundly inadequate in most instances while access to social infrastructures of health and education for their children is a major challenge. This paper examines the legislative, policy and governance context that shapes the entitlements of seasonal migrant construction workers to housing, basic services and social infrastructures in Gujarat’s three largest cities of Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara with a view towards better understanding the reasons for their marginalized living conditions in the city and the constraints and possibilities for improving them. Expanding and realizing these entitlements is a crucial step in recognizing seasonal migrants as citizens as well as making urbanization more inclusive. The paper comprises of two main sections. The section on labour regulations discusses four labour laws: the Contract Labour Act 1970, the Inter-State Migrant Workers Act 1979, the Building and Other Construction Workers Act 1996 (BOCW Act), and the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Cess Act 1996. This includes examining the experience and status vis-à-vis the three tasks that are central to the implementation of the BOCW Act— the regulation of employers and construction sites, the registration of construction workers and the implementation of welfare schemes for construction workers—and discussing their implications vis-à-vis access to decent housing, basic services and social infrastructure for the workers and their families. The section also briefly considers two additional instruments for the regulation of public and private construction sites—the contractual conditions put forth by public authorities which regulate construction sites of public projects and the development permission process of the city authorities which regulate building construction in the city by developers/contractors—and discusses their implications for ensuring that migrant construction workers and their families are provided decent housing, basic services and social infrastructure in the city. The section on urban policies discusses four sets of policies and programmes. First, it examines the mainstream slum and housing policies and programmes for the urban poor which are not explicitly targeted at migrant labour but have an implicit stance towards this group. This includes the Basic Services to the Urban Poor (BSUP) sub-mission of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM); the Rajiv Awas Yojana (RAY); the In-Situ Slum Redevelopment (ISR) and Affordable Housing in Partnership (AHP) programmes of the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Housing for All (Urban); and the Gujarat government’s SRS-type projects under its 2010 regulations and 2013 policy and Mukhyamantri Gruh Awas Yojana (MGAY). This also briefly examines programmes of infrastructure for basic services—such as AMRUT and Swachh Bharat Mission—to see whether they seek to expand access to basic services amongst migrant workers. Second, it looks at the recent preparation of a draft national urban rental housing policy and some recent initiatives by municipal authorities to create rental housing. Third, it examines the interventions around setting up homeless shelters in cities. These two approaches—rental housing and homeless shelters—are marginal to the overall approach to housing for the urban poor but are more directly relevant for migrant construction workers. Fourth, it briefly outlines some of the welfare programmes for food, health and education that are applicable across the country/State to look into how they facilitate and/or constrain access to these entitlements for migrant construction workers and their family members in the city.
In the realm of migration studies a considerable body of useful and insightful literature has developed as a result of interest shown in the varied aspects of population mobility by practitioners of different social sciences during the last three decades. This interest is understandable in view of the immense contribution of migrants to the processes of urbanization, industrialization, population redistribution, economic development, cultural diffusion and social integration. But till today hardly any attempt has been made to put the available studies on migration into a coherent pattern of literature. The usefulness of making a systematic presentment of the relevant literature on a significant subject of research like migration needs no emphasis here. A work of this kind helps researchers know the past trends, locate research gaps, identify the pertinent and pro-found lines of inquiry needed for construction of the theory of migration and avoid the mistake of sterile repetition of an old work. In consonance with the point of view just stated this paper is designed to present a thematic record of findings of survey reports and re-search investigations on India's internal migration. The theme of this paper is explicated against the background of generalizations, models and theories mostly developed out of the Western experiences. The analysis of facts and findings in a comparative perspective will help us to discern the nature of migratory behaviour typical of India.
Urbanization has both benefits and costs. In a market economy, the trade-off between benefits and costs determines the level, speed, and pace of urbanization. This paper summarizes research findings on how urbanization enhances productivity and economic growth in both rural and urban sectors, taking the case of India. We study the relationship between urbanization and growth in the Indian context by examining microeconomic evidence on how enterprises and consumers share production and infrastructure costs, match with specialized workers and employers more efficiently in the labor market, and learn from other producers and workers. Based on extensive data analyses of urbanization, we find no impact of urban–rural inequalities on urbanization, but a significant impact on the population of the largest city in the state. When accounting for the two-way relationship between urbanization and the rural–urban income ratio, we find that urbanization increases urban–rural inequalities initially, but, at higher levels, reduces them. This paper also studies how the urban areas are affected by migration from rural areas and how rural areas benefit from urban development. Furthermore, policy implications regarding telecommuting and investments in urban infrastructure are summarized. Lessons from India and the People’s Republic of China for each other’s urbanization are also discussed.
In the words of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, “A common man needs bread, a house, adequate clothing, education, good health and above all the right to work with dignity on the world’s boulevards.” Street Vending is a huge informal sector in India and offers employment to several millions in the country. In order to regulate and protect the street vendors in India, the Parliament has enacted the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act 2014. The onus of creating rules under the Act rests on the states and subsequently, they devolve compliance and regulation to the local bodies. Yet, states have made unequal efforts in complying with and implementing the Act in letter and spirit. This report tracks the status of compliance of the Act across India, statewise, and develops an index to assess their performance.
The high growth regime in India during the last two decades has been widely critiqued for its apparently exclusionary development process that has rendered agrarian livelihoods untenable. When combined with climatic stressors – like changing rainfall and increasing temperature – this unviability of rural agrarian livelihoods has led to increased out-migration to the cities. However, the lack of opportunities in agriculture has not been compensated by increased quality job opportunities in urban areas. This structural imbalance has created a mass exodus of rural workers necessitated to engage in precarious city jobs. The process of urban development in India has been highly exclusionary with the impetus on developing world class cities attractive to global finance often denying the basic human rights of a certain set of people living in informal settlements around the city.
The potential to link transformation with adaptation has been explored by many authors, with contributions to the debate notably brought together in volume II of the fifth assessment report (AR5) of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC 2014) and in major initiatives such as the international conference ‘Transformation in a Changing Climate’ held in Oslo in 2013 (Oslo University 2013). Through its Regional Diagnostic Studies (RDS) phase, ASSAR has assembled information on a wide range of adaptation activity in semi-arid areas across four regions – India, West Africa, Southern Africa and East Africa (Revi et al. 2015, Few et al. 2015, Spear et al. 2015, Padgham et al. 2015). It is timely therefore to review this range of activity through the lens of transformation. How do the concepts surrounding transformation relate to the mix of current and proposed activities identified as responding to social-ecological risks in these regions associated with climate and environmental change? What is driving any current transformation in the adaptation arena in these regions (recognising that climate change is just one of a likely range of possible drivers)? And what can we draom this about what it may mean for the wellbeing of different groups of people in semi-arid regions, at different spatial and temporal scales? This paper commences with a background discussion of the terms associated with transformation, draws on this to build a conceptual framework for comparing activities, highlights a range of activities from the regions that could be classified in different ways as embodying transformation, and reflects on some of their implications and complexities.
Labour migration has been a common element of the survival strategy of people in the mountain districts of Pakistan for centuries. Traditionally, migration from these areas started on a seasonal basis, when labour migration to the lowlands served as a means of dealing with food insecurity and as a source of additional income (Olimova 2005). Over the years, migration patterns from the mountain districts have evolved into more permanent migration to urban areas in Pakistan and even abroad. Key reasons include population growth, which leads to shortages of arable land and food insecurity, and the lure of the outside world through improved technology and the widespread use of mobile phones, radio, the Internet, and television in mountain districts. According to a study carried out in 2007 by South Asia Partnership-Pakistan (Arif 2009), as many as five (out of six) districts in the Northern Areas (NA) of Pakistan and four (out of eight) in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK) have low or extremely low access to food. In terms of food availability, the analysis ranked NA and AK as two of the top three food insecure areas in Pakistan. At the same time, only 37% of rural households in Pakistan own land, and of these, 67% own less than two hectares (five acres) (Arif 2009).
This article analyses the impact of the global economic meltdown-driven crisis of the late 2007 on workers in the unorganised sector of gem polishing and construction industries in Rajasthan. Based on a field survey, the study analysed the impact of crisis led fall in employment and wage income of workers in general and of different social groups on their living standards. During the crisis period, workers in general tried to adjust to the wage loss and consequent income fall by spending less on their physical as well as social life. In the initial phase of the crisis, workers tend to trim down spending on their social life, followed by a reduction in expenditure on health and education. As the crisis persisted, the workers were left with little other alternative but cut back expenditure on even necessaries absolutely indispensable for their perpetuation and reproduction (food, shelter, clothing, etc). As the crisis continued unabated, they were rather compelled to reduce the very quantity of food intake. Reductions in spending on the necessaries of life tantamount to the absolute deterioration of life standard of workers which would leave the younger generation of the labour force crippled costing dear even to the capital and the state. The social life of workers too was relegated as they cut back their spending on cultural life. On top of it is the economic distress driven domestic conflict, violence and depression, the brunt of which fell mostly on women and children. The study found expenditure reduction food, education and health and sale of assets were mostly done by workers in the lower income strata in both industries. Further that the scale and magnitude of unemployment and income fall due to the crisis on the living standard were more severe for labour households of Scheduled Castes and Tribes. For migrant workers, the hardships further severe. Even though the Indian economy is reported to have been gradually recovering from the crisis, children who were withdrawn from schools and colleges, health hazards of those who had cut back their spending on food and medicines, especially children, women and the aged ones are not retrievable to the pre-crisis level implying that the crisis-led destruction endures. The only viable solution to thwart the deterioration in the living standard of workers is their political mobilization and their organized act to exert pressure on the state to increase budgetary allocation for social service and relief package, at least in the short run.
This paper empirically analyses India’s money demand function during the period 1996 to 2013 using quarterly data. Cointegration test suggests that money demand represented by M1 and Interest Rate have a unit root, whereas in the presence of structural break both of the variables are found to be stationary which implies that shocks are temporary in nature. It was found that there is no long term equilibrium relationship in the money demand function. Moreover, when the money demand function was estimated using dynamic OLS, it is concluded that GDP and short term interest rate has a positive impact on money demand (M1).
Despite a large policy-thrust towards road provision in developing countries, the impact of roads on poverty alleviation is not well-understood. Using quasi-random road placement from a rural road construction program in India, this paper finds evidence of lower prices and increased availability of non-local goods in treatment areas, suggesting greater market integration. Reduced-form evidence suggests that changes in market access caused rural households to (a) increase the adoption of agricultural technologies, and (b) pull teenaged members out of school to join the labor force. Enrollment gains for younger children point to an improvement in access to public services.
This paper is about north east India, a region that has emerged through a difficult journey of struggles, conflicts, acrimony, with little support from the Centre and a population that kept to itself, holding its affinity to its own land based practices and cultural norms. Indeed, so strong were these groups, especially in the hill areas, about their own identity, that the entry of ‘foreign’ entry was fought tooth and nail in the 19th century. Despite the strong stand off, the region experienced unprecedented movement of a work force, which was brought by the British colonialists towards investment on jute production, timber and tea industry.Of course, the rapid expansion of the industry and its highly labour-intensive nature meant that a large source of labourers were required.This was indeed an important investment in the British expansionist policy of north east India.
With less than five per cent of the total workforce in India having received formal skill training , there is clearly a need for expansion of skill development facilities. It is for this reason that skill development has gained impetus and several initiatives have been undertaken by the Government of India. These major initiatives have provided considerable attention to the demand for skills from specific industries that are expected to lead India’s growth. What has received somewhat less attention is the nature of the demand for jobs that is emerging across the country. As a result, some rather fundamental questions have not received the attention they deserve. By its very nature skill development strategy recognizes a mismatch between the demand for jobs and the skills available with those who need jobs, but what are the underlying causes of this mismatch? Is it, as the strategy seems to suggest, entirely a matter of inadequate education, or is it also a matter of a substantial gap between the location in which the demand for jobs is emerging and the points where skills training is being imparted? Is the kind of skills that are being imparted entirely consistent with the demand for skills that the economy is likely to throw up?
The risk to humans of being displaced through sudden natural disasters is 60 percent higher today than it was forty years ago. Today an average of 25.4 million people is displaced every year as a consequence of natural disasters. Climate change contributes to the increase in extreme weather events and weather-related natural disasters, and to the increasing number of people who lose their life support base and are forced to flee their homes and migrate to other places. Climate change and environmental degradation are already much stronger drivers of migration flows than many of us may be aware of. This study intends to contribute to a better understanding of the complex relationships between climate change, environmental degradation and migration, and provide insight into current research as well as political initiatives. It also intends to counter some widespread misperceptions. The climatic and environmental factors driving migration are often ignored because it is difficult to isolate them from other motives. Climate and migration researchers therefore attempt to investigate climatic and environmental factors in differentiated ways and to explore and reveal the many ways in which they are connected to other factors. Climate change and environmental degradation are multipliers of additional problems and crises that lead to displacement and migration. The more differentiated our understanding of complex contexts is, the better governments and society can prepare for these challenges and support the people affected.
This paper assesses the mutual impact of returning Indian-origin skilled workers on the cities of Bangalore (Bengaluru) and Hyderabad, which have emerged as India’s leading ‘‘tech cities’’. During the 1970s and 1980s, there was concern that India was losing its educated workforce to the West, particularly to the United States through a phenomenon known as ‘‘brain drain’’. More recently, there is evidence that reverse brain drain is occurring, as U.S.-trained Indian professionals are returning to their home country in increasing numbers to take advantage of new growth and employment opportunities. The effects of this skilled, transnationally active labor force on various sectors of the economy, on the social and physical infrastructure of Bangalore and Hyderabad and in forging and solidifying transnational linkages between India and the United States are explored in this paper. This study also investigates the reasons why successful US professionals of Asian-Indian origin are returning to their home country via a series of personal interviews. The paper offers Bangalore and Hyderabad as ‘‘worldwide leading cities’’ with a niche status in the global Information Technology (IT) sector.
Asia has maintained its important role in global migration, although there has been some change in the relative size of origin countries, with Pakistan becoming more important. The decline in oil prices has not yet affected the deployment of workers to GCC countries, although this is a concern in origin countries. Policies to reduce dependence on foreign workers in GCC countries have also yet to show an effect on the flow of workers. However, the impact of policies directed at the welfare and protection of deployed workers is apparent. Immigration of Asian citizens to OECD countries is at its highest peak ever, driven by rebounds in key destination countries. Asian immigrants in Europe and in North America fare better in the labor market than other immigrant groups, sometimes even better than native-born residents. The weight of Asian international students among all those studying at universities abroad is also high, in particular as a sending region. The presence of Asian students is particularly visible at the highest levels of tertiary education.
This paper seeks primarily to establish some benchmarks for policy and law for displacement and rehabilitation in India. It will do this by looking briefly at the actual experience of displacement due to big dams in India in 50 years, the resistance to big dams, and also by examining some of the major issues in the discourse about displacement and development in India.
India has five million working children which is more than two percent of the total child population in the age group of 5-14 years. Despite existence of legal prohibitions, several socio-economic situations ranging from dearth of poverty, over–fertility, non-responsive education system to poor access in financial services adversely affect a section of children and keep them in work field. This work burden not only prevents the children from getting the basic education, it is also highly detrimental to their health and ultimately leads to intellectual and physical stunting of their growth. At this backdrop, this paper measures the magnitude of child rights to education enjoyed by the child labour across the states of West Bengal. The paper identifies various reasons behind non-inclusiveness of a great portion of child labour in main-stream of education through empirical analysis in two backward districts of West Bengal. An analysis of NCLP activities based on evaluation surveys helps to trace the gap of work and lack of convergence mechanism with activities of Sarba Shiksha Mission. We recommend few measures to revamp the whole process, so that relationship between child labour and inclusive education activities can be revamped. NCLP and Sarba Shiksha Mission should work hand in hand to fulfill this objective. Complete implementation of Right to Education can help to solve many of these issues involved with child labour, as the act itself has an inclusive approach.
Child labour is a serious socio-economic issue and has been a topic of wider debate both in the developed and poor countries. Due to the moral concern associated with the problem some opine that child labour should be banned. However, it is found that families with very low income have no option but to send their children to do hard works. One such example is brick fields where migrant, poor workers from Bihar have to toil with their children in a very harsh and uncongenial work atmosphere. In this study an attempt has been made to gauge the problem of child labour in the brick fields of West Bengal.
The migration of labourers from North and North Eastern India has brought deep repercussions in the socio-economic scenario of Kozhikode. The situation is generally so in the state of Kerala where the ageing population of the state finds it difficult to manage their day to day activities without the help of these labourers. Hotels, restaurants ,shops and construction activities might even come to standstill if not for these migrants. They are the people who supply everything that the town needs and demands. In Kozhikode without knowing Hindi,the language in which most of the migrant labourers communicate ,matters wouldn’t be very smooth to the domestic population.
India has all along followed a proactive policy in the matter of labour Policy. India has evolved in response to specific needs of situation to suit requirements of planned economic development and social justice and a two-fold objective namely maintaining industrial peace and promoting the welfare of labour. The unorganized sector of the economy is primarily labour intensive but less rewarding to the workers in compensation to their efforts put in production. The characteristics of the unorganized labour are specified by the Second Commission on Labour (2002) as self employed persons involved in jobs, agriculture workers, migrant labours, casual and contract workers and home-based artisans. The nature of the employment relationship is the key determinant factor of unorganized labour. The unorganized labour accounted for more than percent of the total workforce according to census 2001. The majority of women workers come under this category and is employed in the rural areas. Among the rural women workers, 87 percent are employed in agriculture as labourers and cultivators. In urban areas, 80 percent are employed in household industries, petty traders, domestic servants and workers in the cottage industries. Though women constitute a significant part of workforce, they lag behind men and they are neglected section of the society. Moreover, it is an established fact that women bear a disproportionately heavy burden of work than men as they have to contribute more time in the care economy that is the domestic work. The unorganized is most vulnerable, ignored and diverse. Women in unorganized sector constitute a sizable number so it is important to study their problems and prospects. The present study is based on the primary data conducted in Baster district of Chhattisgarh which examine the socioeconomic conditions and various problems of unorganized women workers.
Socio-economic conditions and living standards of are very discouraging in India, as per the available literature. Being in the unorganised sector, vast majority of them are devoid of minimum formal social security protection also. This situation prevails even if there are many statutory provisions for their welfare as per the Central and State level enactments. Though more and more employment is being generated, such employment is characterized by poor working conditions and lack of effective social protection. In the above context, this paper makes an empirical study of the socio-economic conditions of unorganised sector domestic migrant labourers (DML) in Ernakulam District of central Kerala and suggests strategies for improving the working and living conditions of the migrant labourers.
Approximately 3.5 million Nepalese are working as migrant workers in the Gulf countries, Malaysia, and India. Every year there are more than 1000 deaths and many hundreds cases of injuries among Nepalese workers in these countries excluding India. A postmortem examination of migrant workers is not carried out in most of these countries, and those with work-related injuries are often sent back to home. Uninsured migrant workers also do not have easy access to health care services in host countries due to the high medical and hospital fees. Greater efforts are needed to protect the health and well-being, labor rights, and human rights of migrant workers from Nepal and other SouthAsian nations. There is a need to enforce universal labor laws in these countries and to develop accurate records of mortality and morbidity and their causes.
A review of construction workers management functions has been done to find out gaps / deficiencies, if any, in compliance with provisions of the applicable Acts & Rules and understand the constraints and suggest ways and means to overcome. Also, a survey has been done among construction workers at various project sites of the company in Maharashtra, to ascertain factors mostly affecting their motivation, satisfaction with the employer, efficiency & work hour productivity.
The number of Adivasis migrating from Nandurbar district (M.S.) to other places are approximately one Lack. The number is increasing every year. Adivasis face a lot of economical and social problems at work place. Adivasis have to work very hard at work place. They live a very hard life. They face a lot of economical and social problems like exploitation, addiction, Aids, Sickle Cell, Malaria, malnutrition, child deaths, educational problems of their children, girls and women are kidnapped and molested etc.
The process of globalization, export oriented industrialization and relocation of industries from the developed to developing countries lead to increase in women workers in unorganized sector. The nature of women’s work ranges from wage employment or self-employment, family labour and piece rated work. The unorganized sector has no clear-cut employer-employee relationships and lacks most forms of social protection. Having no fixed employer, these workers are casual, contractual, migrant, home based, own-account workers who attempt to earn a living from whatever meager assets and skills they possess. Skilled and unskilled construction workers work with low wages. They are working under unsecured environment or work culture. They are migrating from different regions and states leaving their native villages in search of daily job and is one of the main reasons for their extreme exploitation. Construction industry is the major source of employment for workers in the unorganized sector. The aim of this study is to describe the problems faced by the women construction workers in Trichy district. The present study is descriptive in nature. The universe of the present study includes the population of women construction workers in hot spots. As the population is infinite, the researcher had used the non-probability- convenient sampling method was adopted for collecting the sample. The sample size of the present study is 50. The researcher used self-prepared questionnaire for collecting data on demographical details. For the purpose of this research work, standardized tool on Problem Checklist for Working Women by Vishwa Vijaya Singh (1997), to assess the problems of working women was used. The study gives suggestions to improve the living conditions based on the findings.
With half of the world’s population now living in cities, urbanisation is driving human civilisation and has been the key driver of prosperity in the past two centuries. However, many new migrants to the city find that their aspirations take years or even decades to materialise. Worldwide, as in Pakistan, new rural-to-urban migrants often live in squalid transient settlements with limited opportunities and poor living conditions which they choose over worse poverty and lack of opportunity that they leave behind. Cities triumph through agglomerating people and ideas. However information asymmetry about opportunities and services limits this potential. We used crowd-sourcing in Dhok Hassu, Rawalpindi to map a population of 200,000. The Akhtar Hameed Khan Development Trust (AHKRC) and Research and Development Solutions (RADS) aim to facilitate development by connecting aspects of public and private sector opportunities by fostering an ongoing dialogue on urbanisation and to test innovations with scientifically robust methodologies. This is the first in a series of dialogues on urban issues that were identified during research and conversations in urban slums.
This study sought to better understand the drivers of skilled health professional migration, its consequences, and the various strategies countries have employed to mitigate its negative impacts. The study was conducted in four countries—Jamaica, India, the Philippines, and South Africa—that have historically been “sources” of health workers migrating to other countries. The aim of this paper is to present the findings from the Indian portion of the study. Methods: Data were collected using surveys of Indian generalist and specialist physicians, nurses, midwives, dentists, pharmacists, dieticians, and other allied health therapists. We also conducted structured interviews with key stakeholders representing government ministries, professional associations, regional health authorities, health care facilities, and educational institutions. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression models. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically. Results: Shortages of health workers are evident in certain parts of India and in certain specialty areas, but the degree and nature of such shortages are difficult to determine due to the lack of evidence and health information. The relationship of such shortages to international migration is not clear. Policy responses to health worker migration are also similarly embedded in wider processes aimed at health workforce management, but overall, there is no clear policy agenda to manage health worker migration. Decision-makers in India present conflicting options about the need or desirability of curtailing migration. Conclusions: Consequences of health work migration on the Indian health care system are not easily discernable from other compounding factors. Research suggests that shortages of skilled health workers in India must be examined in relation to domestic policies on training, recruitment, and retention rather than viewed as a direct consequence of the international migration of health workers.
The growing importance of overseas employment for the Bangladesh economy is clearly evident. Remittances rose to over $15 billion in 2015 or about 8% of gross domestic product(GDP)—up from less than $2 billion in 2000—and have become a major source of foreign exchange earnings, second only to ready-made garments. As such, remittances contributed 61% of the recent foreign exchange reserve buildup in 2014–2015. Overseas employment itself represents over one-fifth of the annual addition to the country’s total labor force and over half of additional manufacturing jobs created in recent years. Close to half a million people found jobs abroad every year from 2012 to 2014.
This paper, “Research on the Labour Recruitment Industry between United Arab Emirates, Kerala (India) and Nepal,” was commissioned to the International Organization for Migration by the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) within the framework of the Abu Dhabi Dialogue. It examines the labour recruitment processes from India and Nepal to the UAE, with a focus on low-skilled and semi-skilled workers. It seeks to create an understanding of the current structures, challenges, and flaws in the system that complicate regulation and expose prospective and current workers to various forms of abuse and exploitation, most notably the charge of illegal recruitment fees, with the aim to promote the development of more effective regulation and fair recruitment practices in the future. To this end, surveys and interviews were conducted with stakeholders in the target countries, including 2421 workers, and 316 recruiters, employers, government officials, and other relevant key informants. The snowball sampling technique was used in identifying potential interview partners and survey participants, and analysis was conducted from a supply chain perspective, leading to 22 key findings and 11 recommendations.
Internal labour migration is an important and necessary livelihood strategy for millions of individuals and households throughout India. Participation in labour mobility can also influence health and development outcomes among migrant workers and their households. To understand the connections between internal labour migration, health, and rural livelihoods, a mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) study including 66 semi-structured interviews and 300 household surveys (representing 1,693 individuals) was conducted in 26 rural villages in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu. Data were collected on the determinants, types, and outcomes of internal labour migration, the rate of participation in the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), self-reported morbidity, and health seeking behaviour. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis and quantitative data were analyzed using multivariable logistic and linear models. Of the 300 households surveyed, 137 (45.7%) had at least one current migrant member, with 205 migrant workers (8.3% females and 91.7% males) included in total. Types of labour migration included daily labour commutes (12.2%), temporary labour migration (77.6%), and permanent migration (2.9%). Households from historically marginalized castes were 3.7 times more likely to engage in temporary labour migration than higher caste households. Participation in internal labour migration was financially advantageous, with the highest daily wages earned by high skilled workers and those in the construction industry. Despite public and political discourse on the subject, participation in MGNREGA did not act as a substitute for internal labour migration. Conversely, there was evidence that MGNREGA and internal labour migration were used as complementary livelihood strategies. In terms of self-reported morbidity, 22.3% of individuals experienced a chronic health problem at the time of survey administration. This prevalence did not differ between migrant and nonmigrant adults. The lack of confidence in the public healthcare system and the cost of private healthcare were barriers to seeking care. The overall findings underscore the significance of internal labour migration for these rural households and its role in shaping health and development outcomes.
Migration flows have shaped some of India’s key sectors: labour, foreign relations, or education. Large scale internal migrations and labour mobility in particular have an historical association, which has been widely documented. While flows differ in duration, motives, and migrant profiles, their impact on households and communities also varies at places of destination and origin. Internal, seasonal migrations act as a ‘safety valve’ among the poorest communities, more often than not critical to the livelihoods of the most socially and economically vulnerable. Those belong in majority to tribal communities, Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Class. In this context, the linkage between tribal migration dynamics and child malnutrition has emerged as a salient point from field observations in recent publications. The vulnerability of tribal communities to undernutrition is broadly acknowledged. Over a third —37% or 61 million— of under-five stunted children worldwide are found in India, and stunting rate in the country is highest among tribal children —54%. Previous studies have also shown that severe stunting was 9 percentage points higher in tribal children compared to non-tribal children (29% versus 20%). Household poverty, maternal factors (e.g. the age of the first pregnancy) and infant and young child care practices rank high among the core determinants for malnutrition in tribal children.
2.2 million Keralites migrated to other countries and one million to other states. Estimates of interstate migrants in Kerala show that there may be as many 2.5 million of them. Lack of opportunities in place of origin, low wages and steady growth in Kerala are some of the reasons people migrate to Kerala from distant states like Assam, West Bengal and Odisha.
In the development discourse, migration is seen a contested concept because it can produce both desirable and undesirable outcomes. This paper focuses on analysing migration as a livelihood option for extreme poor households drawing upon Stimulating Household Improvements Resulting in Economic Empowerment (SHIREE 2) programme data. In the qualitative longitudinal household tracking tool of SHIREE programme, we found different kinds of migration contexts, notably: rural to urban migration, seasonal migration, border crossing migration, and natural disaster related migrations. Our study found that low incomes, loss of earning opportunities, evictions, health shocks, lack of specialized skills, bonded labour and fraud were factors underpinning unsuccessful migration. On the other hand, migrations that developed social networks, had support from NGOs, resulted in reduced dependency ratios, and chose the right destination tended to be positive experiences that helped improve migrants’ wellbeing.
Construction industry is a complex industry known for its heterogeneous work structure. Due to this work structure it is difficult to meet new challenges and deadlines. Hence, migration rates are heavy in construction industry. Objective of the research work is to find out main reasons behind migration of employees in Indian construction industry. To achieve this objective ten factors responsible for employee migration were identified after going through various journals. Pilot survey was conducted with senior employees of the construction industry to verify these ten reasons for an employee migration. With these reasons a questionnaire was prepared. This questionnaire was distributed to 107 employees working for four major construction companies at the regions of Telangana and Sikkim. Out of 107 samples distributed 100 questionnaire samples were received back. Since data collected was skew in nature, parametric tests were done using SPSS.
This paper explores the association between short-term migration in the household and feminization of farm management in rural India. The analysis uses a nationally representative data set covering 35,604 rural Indian households in the year 2013. There is gender disaggregated information on who operates land in addition to the presence of a short-term migrant in the household. We model the labor outcomes of women as reflected by their participation as major decision-makers (main operator) or minor decision makers (associated operator) on the household operational holding. Overall, we find that women are less likely than men to be either main or an associated operator. However, in households with a short-term migrant, the probability of a woman being a decision maker as an operator increases. These results are robust to endogeneity and sample selection concerns. Our study highlights the importance of unpacking the feminization process to better understand the role of women as farm managers.
The failure of providing meaningful employment is the catastrophic development failure of a country. India is a diverse economy encompasses of agriculture, handicraft, wide range of modern industries and multitude services sectors. These spacious spectrums of industries are classified under private and public sectors, but unfortunate for the nation neither the public nor the private sector is able to provide enough employment for the widening labor force. The formal sector affords to manage only marginal cult of the unemployed population although it is an informal/unorganized sector which perceived in past and is increasingly recognized as an alternative source of employment in today’s world. However, the informal/unorganized sector have prominent of problems like job security, social security, the stability of living, migration, child labour, and exploitation of working women. The worries in the informal sector are mounting and seem to be unbroken day by day. In this paper, we have taken some serious issue like migration, issues of working women in an informal sector and the child labour for the analysis. Further, we have dealt with an important concern of perception and problems of informal workers in India.
The economic growth of India is at a brink of stability and we are moving towards “Drive to maturity” (A Development stage of Rostow’s Model). In such a sensitive environment, the human resource and migration of the people from rural to urban area play a conducive role in the emerging economy. The internal migration trends of India reveal some very relevant issues of the economy which demonstrate the facts of developing economy in India. Stated reason of male migrants is the most important topic of study. In 2007–2008, 28.5% of rural male migrants and a majority 55.7% of urban male migrants gave economic reasons for migration. These migrants not just participate in economic activity but also carve out a much need “social Status” Analysis of earlier NSS rounds by several authors has shown that migrants are better off than non- migrants. The NSS provides the MPCE (monthly per capita expenditure) decilewise distribution of migrants as well as the migration rate by deciles. The migration rate is much higher in the top deciles, especially for males. In fact, the rate is more than six times in the highest decile than in the bottom decile (for males) and more than five times in the highest decile compared with the lowest decile for urban males. As a result, there is higher percentage of migrants in the top deciles.
Although the volume of health workers leaving Nepal has been on a steady rise and the implications seem significant, there has been no study to identify the drivers of such migration. Neither are there any policies in Nepal to govern and manage the migration of health workers. This study aimed to fill the gaps. The major findings of the study are as follows. Nepal experiences inequitable distribution of health workers leading to critical shortage of health workers in most part of the country. This leaves the health worker-to-population ratio at 0.67 doctors and nurses per 1,000 individuals, which is significantly lower than the World Health Organization’s recommendation of 2.3 doctors, nurses and midwives per 1,000 individuals. Well-managed data on the stocks and flows of health workers has been a major challenge due to the lack of a comprehensive database, coupled with the tendency of health professionals to opt for other channels of migration, such as through student migration. Lack of data has led to the absence of effective policies to govern the migration of health workers from Nepal. There is no policy framework, act or guidelines specifically to govern the migration of health workers from Nepal, other than the laws that govern foreign employment in general. While there are separate laws governing migration and the health sector, the two areas seldom interact. The scant policy attention received by the international migration of health workers is also reflected in the absence of retentions programmes geared towards motivating health workers from migrating abroad.
Labour migration in Southeast Asia since the 1970s and 1980s must be understood as an integral part of the post-colonial new geographies of migration. The scope and scale of transnational movements have grown rapidly and major states like Malaysia and Thailand between them currently host about 70 per cent of the estimated 13.5 million migrant workers in the region. Singapore’s foreign labour force accounts for 25 per cent of the country’s workforce. Two phenomena characterize these labour movements. Like labour-importing Western democracies, the major Southeast Asian labour-importing countries rely on the guest worker program to solve their labour shortage problems. They regulate immigration through elaborate administrative frameworks that are focussed on border control while brokerage firms and labour recruiters carry out recruitment, transportation and placement of migrant workers. These countries’ immigration policies also often provide incentives for skilled workers, boost circular migration flows among low-skilled workers, and include severe penalties for unauthorised migrants. Additionally, comparisons between these countries point to patterns of convergence among them. This paper explores migration trends in the post-colonial geography of migration against the backdrop of growing regionalism and the development of regional migration systems and migration corridors. It also examines the ‘‘new world domestic order’’ and the development of gendered migration linkages that have resulted in the expansion of the domestic work sector and care-giving migration.
This paper examines the effect of remittances on household expenditure patterns applying propensity score matching methods that allow designing and analyzing observational data and enable reducing selection bias. We use data from the Nepal Living Standards Survey 2010/2011. In general, remittance recipient households tend to spend more on consumption, health and education as compared to remittance non-receiving households. Although the findings do not clearly provide evidence of either the productive or non-productive use of remittances, expenditures on non-food investment categories, such as durable goods, health and education, are more apparent among remittance-receiving households compared to remittance non-receiving households, which signal the prospect of a sustainable long-term welfare gain among the former.
The segmentation that is observed between internal and international migration appears to be a matter of degree. The main distinguishing features between internal and international migrants are the regulatory barriers they face, their skills, financial endowments, social networks and access to other recruitment channels. Migrants who have low skills and social networks suffer from lack of information about the labour markets, are engaged through intermediaries, employed at the lower end of the labour market, and are likely to suffer from a strikingly similar range of deprivations, both as internal and international migrants. The decision to embark upon boils down first to whether potential migrants have access to networks and recruitment channels, and second, whether they can meet the higher costs of migration. Workers can use migration ladders – internal or intra-regional migration to acquire resources or networks, and then migrate abroad. Skills demand and supply can also be a major issue in both international and internal migration. Migrants in both streams are predominantly low-skilled, but the national market and the international market both have a demand for skills, and individuals with skills can compete for the more attractive segment of the job markets in these professions. If training is provided at the lower skill levels also, it is very likely that it will have a favourable impact on job conditions. Thus, despite the differences, there are obvious links between internal and international migration which can be configured into national policies.
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.
Despite policies of highly regulated entry and recent regularisation drives, Gulf States have a sizeable share of irregular workers who live and work in irregular conditions (RMMS 2014). Rigid sponsorship systems, nationalisation policies, and limited quotas for foreign workers in the receiving countries, coupled with the operation of transnational networks and migration intermediaries in countries of origin and destination, perpetuate a parallel labour market for irregular entrants. Despite their economic and political salience, there are few recent estimates of irregular migration in the region. This chapter delivers new estimates and quantitative information based on field research, analysis of administrative data (arrests and regularisation statistics), expert opinions, and published data sources. Drawing on four Kerala Migration Surveys (KMS) and data made available through the Gulf Labour Markets and Migration (GLMM) programme, the chapter presents estimates and analysis of irregular migratory movements from India to Saudi Arabia with a view to elucidate the structural frameworks that create conditions of irregular migration in the region.
Construction workers globally face disproportionate threats to health and wellbeing, constituted by the nature of the work they perform. The workplace fatalities and lost-time injuries experienced by construction workers are significantly greater than in other forms of work. This paper draws on the culture-centered approach (CCA) to dialogically articulate meanings of workplace risks and injuries, voiced by Bangladeshi migrant construction workers in Singapore. The narratives voiced by the participants suggest an ecological approach to workplace injuries in the construction industries, attending to food insecurity, lack of sleep, transportation, etc. as contextual features of work that shape the risks experienced at work. Moreover, participant voices point to the barriers in communication, lack of understanding, and experiences of incivility as features of work that constitute the ways in which they experience injury risks. The overarching discourses of productivity and efficiency constitute a broader climate of threats to worker safety and health.
This paper analyzes the impact of anticipated old age support, provided by children to parents, on intra-family transfers and education. We highlight an education motive for remittances, according to which migrants have an incentive to invest in their siblings’ education via transfers to parents, in order to better share the burden of old age support. Our theory shows that in rich families, selfish parents invest optimally in children education, while in poor families, liquidity constraints are binding and education is fostered by migrant remittances. We test these hypotheses on Indian panel data. Identification is based on within variation in household composition. We find that remittances received from migrants significantly increase with the number of school age children in the household. Retrieving the effects of household characteristics shows that more remittances tend to be sent to poorer and older household heads, confirming the old age support hypothesis.
When people can self-insure via migration, they may have less need for informal risk sharing. At the same time, informal insurance may reduce the need to migrate. To understand the joint determination of migration and risk sharing I study a dynamic model of risk sharing with limited commitment frictions and endogenous temporary migration. First, I characterize the model. I demonstrate theoretically how migration may decrease risk sharing. I decompose the welfare effect of migration into the change in income and the change in the endogenous structure of insurance. I then show how risk sharing alters the returns to migration. Second, I structurally estimate the model using the new (2001-2004) ICRISAT panel from rural India. The estimation yields: (1) risk sharing reduces migration by 60%; (2) migration reduces risk sharing by 23%; (3) contrasting endogenous to exogenous risk sharing, the consumption-equivalent gain from migration is 7% lower. Third, I introduce a rural employment scheme. The policy reduces migration and decreases risk sharing. The welfare gain of the policy is 50-65% lower after household risk sharing and migration responses are considered.
Due to globalization, the world has been changing into a global village. In one hand it has increased closeness and interconnectedness between various countries and economies; on the other, it has spawned an intense competition between them. Since 1990s, the information technology emerged as powerful tool for development of economies. It turned the world economy into a knowledge based economy. Therefore, the progress of an economy today depends on a broad base of intellectual capabilities of human capitals of society. Such human resources, which have ability for innovation and provide unique ideas have become a decisive asset in the global economy . In consequence, demand of skilled man power sharply increased in international market. Therefore, knowledge migration has acquired a significant place in the new world order. Developed countries have been facing skilled labor shortage because of ageing population so they have begun to rely on global labor supply. Outflow of scientists, researchers, skilled professionals, and students from developing countries to developed countries witnessed an unprecedented increased. Sometime back, outflow of skilled human resource was considered a loss-'brain drain' for sending countries, while for the receiving country it was 'brain gain'. However, there has been a change in perception. Now analysts and policy makers began to recognize overseas “knowledge workers” role in science, technology, and innovation development, in increasing remittance inflows, in boosting investments and trade of their origin countries. Returnee migrant students, scientists, and professionals are bridging gaps; they are enhancing interconnections, linkages, and knowledge sharing between sending countries and receiving country. China, India, and Taiwan are significant example of this trend.
Migration from one area to another in search of improved livelihoods is a key feature of human history (Srivastava and Sasikumar, 2003). These moves might be of short to long distance as well as of short to long duration (Kosinski and Prothero, 1975; Massey, 1990; Stone, 1975). It is evident from the available literature that there is a widespread occurrence of temporary and seasonal migration for employment in developing countries (Brauw, 2007; Deshingkar and Farrington, 2006; Hugo, 1982; Lam et al., 2007; Mberu,2006; Yang, 1992). Temporary migration is also one of the most significant livelihood strategies, adopted among the poorest section in rural India, predominantly in the form of seasonal mobility of labour.
Migration is one of the basic determinant of population change and population redistribution over the space. Migration has many positive as well as negative implication. The rate of net rural to urban migration has increased from 21.2 percent in 1991-01 to 24.1 percent in 2001-11. The present study tries to understand the trends in rural to urban migration and its implications in the form of urbanization (an opportunity) and in the form of development of slums (a challenge). The subject matter of migration is very vast and complex, it may be difficult to project all the possible implications arises due to rural-urban migration. Keeping in mind the limitations of the subject, the present study focus on the two most important implications of rural-urban migration covering the positive aspect on the development and growth of cities (urbanization)-as an opportunity and negative aspect on the development of slums-as challenge.
There is general consensus in literature on migration that migrants are primarily young people. During the transition to adulthood, young people make important choices regarding education, labour force participation, and family formation. Using a unique panel dataset on youth born in 1994-95 in Ethiopia, India, Peru, and Vietnam, this working paper investigates how life-course transitions to adulthood relate to patterns and predictors of internal migration in low- and middle-income countries. It documents patterns on prevalence, frequency, timing, reasons and streams of migration, employment at destination, subjective well-being, and migration aspirations. The paper then describes the factors associated with young men and women’s decision to migrate, and the reasons for migrating. The results suggest that there is a significant share of migrants between 15 and 19 years old across all four countries, and they are very likely to move more than once. In all countries, migrants are more likely to move after the school-age years, between ages 17 and 18. These patterns on frequency and timing of moves provide new evidence that young individuals migrate very often even before having finished school, which is key to understanding educational performance. The patterns on the reasons for moving provide evidence that young people move for a variety of reasons that go beyond the economic-related: family formation and family reunion are also important motives for migrating, especially in the studied age range. The migration streams presented show that these youth do not necessarily follow rural-urban migration as it is generalised in the literature (Taylor and Martin 2001), and they shed light on the dynamics of the less studied rural-rural migration. The results suggest that at this age, migration is a household strategy: although migrants do not necessarily contribute remittances to their previous household, they are often receiving them from their caregiver. Choices made during the transition to adulthood shape young people’s migration patterns, and migrants are therefore a very heterogeneous group as there are systematic differences in their characteristics depending on their reasons for moving. This is important because understanding this puts us in a better position to propose more effective policies that target young migrants’ well-being in developing countries
Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries that have extraordinarily high proportions of migrant labor. With migrants comprising 54% of the workforce in Bahrain, 90% in Qatar, and 70% in Saudi Arabia, the labor of migrant workers represents a significant portion of the economies of these States. Benefits of importing foreign labor are clear: foreign workers provide both a basic workforce and specialists to compensate for the limited number of nationals with required skills and attitudes, stimulate the domestic consumption of goods supplied by local merchants, and boost local property markets. Many of these foreign workers traveled to the Gulf from South and Southeast Asia after the discovery of oil and natural gas resources began lifting the region’s economy. Bahrain was the first Gulf State to discover oil in June 1932. It was also the first to reap the benefits that came with increased revenue, and experienced marked improvement in the quality of education and health care. Qatar also experienced an oil boom due to the discovery of crude oil and liquid natural gas reserves, which currently account for approximately 80% of the country’s exports. Significantly beyond the oil wealth in Bahrain and Qatar, Saudi Arabia can produce 10 million barrels of crude oil per day.
Global migration to the European Union (EU) has expanded significantly since the 1990s and is being considered as an important tool to resolve domestic labour shortages in many of its Member States. Migration from India to the EU has so far not been significant except in the case of a few Member States and a few sectors. Nonetheless, there is a growing trend of Indians emigrating to the EU and the governments on both sides have also started looking at facilitating migration between the two regions. The emigration policies of the Indian Government and the policy orientation of the EU governments towards Indian migrants are important not only in deciding the quantum of Indian emigrants going to the EU but also their choice of destination country within the EU. Policy facilitation is also important for preventing exploitation of Indian emigrants both before and after leaving India. Most of the emigration policies in India focus on migration to the Gulf countries and the EU countries have so far not been a focus area. Similarly, the EU’s policy focus has been on intraregional migration or on inflows from a few developed countries outside the EU. The lack of appropriate policy initiatives by the governments on both sides has possibly affected India-EU migration in two ways. First, it may have reduced the extent of the flows from India to the EU in search of better job opportunities. Second, in the absence of information and policy guidelines, Indians in the EU countries, especially low skilled ones, have become more vulnerable to exploitation. A welcome step with respect to skilled workers is the negotiation of bilateral social security agreements between India and several EU Member States which can protect the interests of expatriate workers and companies on a reciprocal basis. However, the interests of the less skilled, remain unaddressed. Therefore, it becomes important that the Government of India makes EU specific policies as it has in the case of Gulf countries and its policies should also take into consideration the welfare and integration of low skilled workers in these countries. The EU should also consider India as a potential source of labour supply to meet skill and labour shortages in its various sectors. Both the sides should come forward to frame policies to facilitate orderly migration and check irregular migration between the two regions.
In development debates, education and migration are both seen as playing an integral role in development outcomes. Education is understood to have a positive impact on development, playing a transformative role in the lives of poor people by providing them with skills, autonomy, freedom and confidence. In the last decade, migration has been increasingly seen among scholars, donor governments and development organisations as holding potential benefits for development, as well as significant risks and costs. This briefing explores the linkages between migration and education in four villages in India and Bangladesh. Although migrant remittances were not widely invested in education in these contexts, education nonetheless helped shape the migration trajectories for local villagers.
This paper investigates the relationship between poverty and migration with the 64th round household level data on employment and unemployment and migration particulars in India collected from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) in 2007-08. The paper examines whether out-migration of rural workers is a gainful option to reduce poverty. By applying the logit model, the study also investigates the effect of rural urban migration on poverty among the in-migrant households living in urban areas in the probabilistic sense. The study explores probable reasons behind migration, either temporary or permanent, in urban locations. It is observed that lack of education, pressure of big family size, small landholding and inadequate agricultural income push rural workers to out-migrate to the cities in search of jobs.
The preference for high-skilled migrants and the relative ambivalence of countries to develop adequate policies for low-skilled migrants is often times accepted without question. The lack of information on the socio-economic impact of these low-skilled migrants on sending and receiving countries thus skews their public image. To challenge this myth of low-preference for the “low-skilled” migrant worker, the paper explores a case study of Indian Punjabi migrants in the Italian dairy industry to show that relevance of these so-called “low-skilled” migrant workers in producing “high-quality” Italian cheese. This paper investigates the origins of the current Indian dominance of the dairy sector in Italy and offers insights into both employee and employer perspectives on this vital industry for the Italian economy and consumer. The paper tries to create a mental picture of the life of the Indian dairy worker in Italy, their motivations, aspirations and conditions of work and shows how and why their work is valued by their Italian employers. The paper includes findings of surveys conducted by both authors to the paper which helps give a balanced view of the impact of this migration on both India and Italy. The paper concludes by clarifying how the Punjabi migrant worker does not “steal European jobs” and gives recommendations for greater efforts towards their adequate integration into Italian society.
Like several other sectors in the state, fishing too faces acute labour crunch and many boat owners in Kerala find it difficult to get labourers. While there is an attrition from the labour force as the senior fishers retire, very few young men from the state find fishing as an attractive means of livelihood. A combined outcome of this is a diminished native labour force. The shortage of labour is addressed by engaging workers from other states.Traditional fishers from five Indian states were found engaged in marine fishing from the Kerala coast during 2017. Fisher folk from Sundarbans region in West Bengal, Puri, Khorda, Cuttack and Baleswar districts on the Odisha coast, Srikakulam and Vizianagaram districts in coastal Andhra Pradesh, Udupi district in Karnataka, and Kanyakumari, Cuddalore, Thoothukkudy and Ramanathapuram districts in Tamil Nadu work in boats that operate from the Kerala coast.
Construction provides employment to the largest proportion of workers from outside the state.However, robust estimates of migrant workers engaged in construction are not yet available. The sector is constituted of large scale civil engineering projects commissioned by the central and state governments, construction of malls, apartment complexes, convention centres, hospitals, factories and other major work in the private sector and construction of buildings, houses and other structures in urban and rural areas across all the 14 districts in the state. While the first two categories are undertaken by multinational or Indian infrastructure development companies, local builders take up most of the small scale constructions. Vizhinjam port, track doubling and modernisation of railway stations in Kottayam district, Kochi Metro Rail, expansion of Kochi Refinery, Kannur airport, expansion of Kochi airport, Information Technology Parks in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi, Solar Park and Central University in Kasaragod, roads, including national highways in various districts, check dams, regulators and flyovers are some of the government commissioned construction projects in the state which engage migrant workers.
Th is study examines the processes, outcomes and problems associated with the migration of women workers from South Asia to the Gulf region. The Gulf region has had long-standing connections with South Asia in terms of both trading links and the movement of persons. The South Asian region has emerged as the most important source of migrant labour in general and female migrants in particular to the Gulf. The countries of this region share a common history of colonial domination and a long history of labour mobility both within and outside the region, but have different economic growth and development experiences. The current spurt in labour migration to the Gulf needs to be situated within the long-term trend of international migration in the age of globalisation, specifically in the last three decades. International migration has become both an outcome and a driver of increasing global integration (Martin et al., 2006; United Nations [UN], 2006; United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2009a). Labour migration from South Asia, which had played a dominant role defining the 19th century international migration trends, has once again emerged at the forefront of the new wave of global migration in the last decades of the 20th century (Mckeown, 2004). While 19th century labour migration was mainly intra imperial and primarily to the British colonies, the destinations of the current international migration flows from the region are mainly the Gulf and North America.
Bonded labour remains widespread throughout India, in a variety of sectors including brick kilns, agriculture, quarries, mining, textile and garment factories, cotton production, the silk industry, and domestic work. While estimates vary immensely, it is certain that millions of people are affected. Bonded labour in India is the product of poverty, discrimination, social exclusion and the failure of the government to implement laws prohibiting the practice. Bonded labourers are chronically poor, and most are also landless or near-landless. The vast majority are initially trapped in debt bondage because they have no other way of subsisting apart from taking a loan from a landlord or employer. Once taken, they lose control over their conditions of employment, and what, if anything, they are paid. The debt is often inflated through exorbitant charges, making it impossible to repay and trapping the worker in a cycle of debt. Bonded labour does not affect the population of India equally. The vast majority of people who are in debt bondage are Dalits, of low caste status, or indigenous people – also referred to as members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The risk of bondage is massively exacerbated when the chronically poor are simultaneously subjected to extensive social discrimination arising from their membership of a particular caste, ethnic group or religious minority.
Bonded labour remains widespread across India, affecting a variety of sectors. Domestic workers, including child domestic workers, continue to be highly vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, forced labour and trafficking. The majority of those affected by bonded labour and forced labour in India are Dalits, of low caste status or indigenous people, many of whom have migrated internally for work. These modern slavery practices continues to persist in India due to discrimination, social exclusion, poverty and the failure by the Government to implement national laws prohibiting the practice. Laws against bonded labour are not implemented. There are significant gaps in the legal protection of domestic workers as they are not included in the labour law and thus not considered workers and excluded from social protection. Weak rule of law in India poses a significant challenge to the eradication of slavery, as there is also poor implementation of national labour laws which would provide protection against abuse. Furthermore, recent changes to labour laws and child labour laws serve to weaken the protection of vulnerable groups of workers against slavery. India is also a source country for workers migrating internationally, particularly to the Middle East. Yet, deficiencies in the national legal and policy framework for international migration increase their vulnerability to trafficking and forced labour.
The Asia Foundation (the Foundation) has been working on issues related to labour for the last decade. While much of the Foundation’s past work focused on addressing labour migration from the economic governance lens; in the past few years, TAF focused on addressing issues related to the rights of migrant workers and the challenges related to labour exploitation in the context of both regular and irregular labor migration. Much of the Foundation’s work on human trafficking is also addressing the links between labor migration and human trafficking. Recently, the Foundation partnered with three reputed local research institutions in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal to undertake a regional research entitled “Labour Migration: Trends and Practices” which examined the patterns and process of labor migration by Nepali and Bangladeshi migrant workers using informal and irregular channels for migration and its links. The research explored the dimensions of both regular and irregular labour migration and reviewed the links, if any, with labour exploitation and human trafficking. The research also examined the factors promoting undocumented migration, formal/ informal linkages, if any, between agents and recruitment agencies, vulnerability of the migrants, and strengthened accountability systems and mechanisms to ensure informed and empowered labor migration.
The estimated six million nurses and midwives in the WHO European Region are inadequate to meet current and projected future needs. In several of the EU countries, expected shortages are accentuated by the fact that the health workforce is ageing and a growing proportion of workers will retire soon. These countries are diversifying strategies to remedy shortages. At the governmental level, the EU countries seek to minimize migration from developing countries citing ‘ethical’ concerns about shortages at the source. However, nurses from developing countries including India remain a potential source of supply that has been tapped by the EU countries from time to time. In this context, this paper examines the prospects for the migration of nurses from Kerala to the EU and the challenges in this regard. The state of Kerala is of interest because of its history of migration of nurses to Europe, its strengths in education and its health sector achievements. The paper takes up the cases of two EU countries – the Netherlands and Denmark – to understand better the challenges to the mobility of nurses to the EU. The Netherlands and Denmark have recruited small numbers of Indian nurses and operation theatre assistants in the recent past. Both countries are contending with present and future shortages of nursing staff, yet there is a discernible mismatch between their immigration policies with respect to nurses and the demands of hospitals / employers. In this context, sporadic network driven migration of nurses mostly from Kerala has registered greater success but there has been less space for the evolution of a coordinated approach to migration from India i.e., between governments, recruiting agencies and employers. To study the policy context for the migration of nurses from non EU countries in the Netherlands and Denmark and the experiences of nurses, the paper uses material generated through interviews conducted in October 2012 with a cross section of stakeholders in these countries. The paper also evolves recommendations to enable a mutually beneficial and planned mobility of nurses to the EU.
Labour migration within and from the Colombo Process (CP) Member Countries is significant, growing and increasingly complex. An overwhelming majority leave on a temporary basis, and many are considered vulnerable since they move without documentation and/or take lowpaid jobs in less-skilled and largely unprotected sectors of the economy. CP Member Countries have recently taken concrete, pro-active steps to manage labour migration. In just the last five years, 8 of the 11 CP countries amended existing regulations or adopted new legislation concerning labour migration, 7 created new government structures dedicated to managing labour outflow and the welfare of overseas migrants, and 10 signed 59 bilateral agreements (BAs) and memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with key destination countries. In addition, CP Member Countries have launched specific programmes and activities at different levels of government to disseminate essential information, regulate the recruitment process, provide welfare support at origin and destination, and maximize the benefits of labour migration.
This paper analyses the trends, nature and extent of out-migration from South Asia and its neighbouring countries like Afghanistan and Iran and examines the economic implications in both sending and receiving countries. It also provides a detailed review on labour rights issues and trade union responses to migration related issues. It aims to help all concerned parties set up a policy framework as well as legal instruments to harness the benefits of labour migration and build a protection regime for migrant worker
This article employs survey data from the most recent Inter-State Migrant Survey in Kerala (ISMSK) to show how out-of-state migrants are kept isolated from the surrounding community. Migrant workers to Kerala are unable to integrate with local workers and residents to gain important information about local wage levels, worker rights and working standards. Worse, local labour unions are not trying to integrate these workers into the labour market or inform them about local conditions. This lack of integration poses a long-term threat to the strength and viability of the Keralite labour movement, and the larger social model in which it is embedded.
This study explores factors that initiate and perpetuate low skill labour migration from India to the EU, examines the migration processes and evaluates the policy prescriptions available to manage such migration flows. Based on a survey of the available quantitative and qualitative evidence, our study points to the existence of a fairly stable and persistent demand for low skilled labour in the EU, at least in the medium term. As this demand cannot be fully met from within the EU, there is and will remain a strong demand for low skilled migrant workers from non-EU countries. This offers immense scope for traditional labour sending countries like India as well as destination countries in the EU to strengthen the migration–development nexus. Unfortunately, on both sides, there seems to be an absence of a coherent and focused policy for governing migration of low skilled workers. Considering that migration of low skilled workers from India is mainly directed to the Persian Gulf, the study also makes a comparison between the existing immigration policies in EU countries and the Persian Gulf in order to draw relevant policy perspectives. Evolving appropriate policy response in relation to low skilled migration to Europe is also necessary given that a significant share of such workers end up as irregular migrants in transit or at the destination.
Oil was discovered in the Arabian Gulf (also called the Persian Gulf) region in the early 20th century, followed by a long-term rise in the prices of oil and natural gas beginning in the late 1990s. Since then, the countries of what is now known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman – have experienced development at a furious pace. The most visible sign of the region’s growth is its booming construction landscape. Governments are spending their enormous wealth commissioning new campuses for international artistic and educational institutions and hosting mega-events like the 2020 World Expo in Dubai and the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The combination of vast wealth and large-scale development has resulted in significant structural changes within these societies, including mass migration of low-wage workers, mostly from South and Southeast Asia, into the local construction and service sectors. Thus far, Gulf societies have not provided adequate protections for the influx of outsiders. The situation of workers on high-profile construction projects in the region has been the subject of considerable public attention in recent years. Reports from human rights organizations, news media, and international organizations have documented that GCC migrant workers frequently are underpaid, are allotted substandard housing, and lack legal protections – including the freedom to organize in most states. GCC countries also have not ratified international legal instruments meant to protect migrant workers from abuses like these, nor have a number of major migrant-sending countries. In all GCC countries, variants of the legal sponsorship or kafala system give local employers significant power over their workers, making it difficult for migrants to change jobs, lodge complaints, or even to return home without permission from their employers. Meanwhile, the protective laws that are on the books in the GCC are unevenly enforced.
This report is an output of the Fifth Round table on Labour Migration in Asia held in Shanghai, the Peoples Republic of China, in early 2015. The report presents latest available data on the main trends in migration from and within Asia. It also provides a discussion of labor migration flows to Asian and Middle Eastern countries.
The economic reform has already unleashed investment and growth, offering its citizens rich opportunities. Although the Indian economy has been resilient so far, the key issue now is how to sustain this momentum. Turning around its cities and releasing their dynamism will be critical to India's future economic growth.
This review consists of three major sections, one presenting the background of the discussions, then another covering major themes and debates, followed by a highlighting of some observed gaps and opportunities. It is followed by a select annotated bibliography. Since so far the main concern has been generating knowledge about the climate-change/migration link, the sub-sections in the first and second part follow the scientific process of defining the problem, choosing a methodology, describing mechanisms and proposing solutions.
This report examines the pace of urbanisation in India and growth trends of Indian Economy and tries to build a relationship between urbanisation and economic growth. Urban poverty with over 25% of urban population is largely concentrated in small and medium towns. Though the incidence of poverty is lower in larger cities, the poor face acute shortage of basic amenities there.
The thrust of these four points is that any attempt to assess the impact of migration and development, or to plan for it, needs to incorporate internal migration and not just the minority of international migrants.
Rural to Urban migrations are caused by a variety of factors. In nutshell major factors of migration are 1-Marriage, 2-Employment, 3-Education and 4-Lack of Security. Urban centers provide vast scope for employment in various sectors and also offer modem facilities of life. Thus, they act as ‘magnets’ for the migrant population and attract people from outside. In other words, cities pull people from rural areas. This is known as “pull factor”. People also migrate due to ‘push factors’ when they do not find means of livelihood in their home villages, they are ‘pushed’ out to the nearby or distant towns. Millions of people those migrated from their far-off villages to the big cities. Their home villages had virtually rejected them as surplus population which the rural resources of land were not able to sustain any longer.
The paper examines the demographic changes in hill and plain regions of Uttarakhand. The dynamics of out-migration and its impact on household economy are analysed. It also argues how migration has almost failed to generate any multiplier effects in the village economy. The hardships of village life in general and women in particular in Hill Region of Uttarakhand in the wake of increasing out-migration understood. It analyses the nature and quality of livelihoods in hill districts of the State and shows how these are highly backbreaking yet contributing very low incomes to a large majority of workers therein. The policy paradigm and its failures to create remunerative employment opportunities in Hill Region and resultant out-migration for creating present demographic vacuum are discussed.
Women migrant domestic workers face long (or undefined) working hours, low salaries and late payment of salaries and poor or repressive living conditions. According to a 2005 ILO study, in Bahrain the average number of work hours for female domestic workers was 108 per week, in Kuwait 101, and in the UAE 105. These women had an average of 1 day off per month. All those interviewed for the study spoke of control on their freedom of movement. Every woman interviewed reported that her passport was held by their employer. None of them were given remuneration for working overtime. This information was confirmed to the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants and three other special procedure mandate holders: many women domestic migrant workers have to work 15 to 17 hours a day, seven days a week.
Labor migration from and within Asia is a key and growing component of international migration flows, and the joint roundtable by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on labor migration in Asia bears witness to this. In recent years, Asia has provided a large part of the more skilled migration inflows to OECD countries, even as the global competition to attract skilled and talented workers has intensified. Most of the flows, however, are intra-Asian, and consist mainly of lesser skilled labor.
The migration of highly skilled women is a phenomenon of growing significance for most countries. Between 2000 and 2011, the number of tertiary-educated migrant women in OECD countries rose by 80 per cent. This increase not only represented a twofold growth in the number of tertiary-educated, native-born women, but also exceeded the 60 per cent increase in the number of tertiary educated migrant men (DIOC 2000 and DIOC 2011). Moreover, according to data from the DIOC 2000/01, the emigration rate from sending countries was 4 per cent higher for tertiary-educated women than it is for tertiary-educated men (13.9% as compared to 9.7%). In Africa, the average emigration rates of tertiary educated women are considerably higher than those of tertiary-educated men (27.7% and 17.1%, respectively); this phenomenon is also seen in Latin America, where the rates are 21.1 per cent for women and 17.9 per cent for men. In terms of the global distribution of highly skilled migrant women, one-third (34%) of tertiary-educated migrant women residing in OECD countries come from Asia – primarily, the Philippines, China and India – while the four leading destination countries for tertiary-educated migrant women are Canada, Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom (DIOC, 2005/06).
As part of the flagship project, Reducing Vulnerability of Women Affected by Climate Change through Viable Livelihood Options, UN Women Bangladesh has been exploring the impacts of migration on women caused by climate change-related phenomena. Together with research partners, the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies, UN Women studied 10 districts in three different eco-zones in Bangladesh to understand the district-specific implications that women face due to male migratory trends.
The study found that migration can help families to stay afloat, and also improve their financial condition. In a disaster-stricken country like Bangladesh, migration is becoming a common adaptation strategy to the impacts of climate change. But there is a vital need to support those who migrate as well as those who remain behind. UN Women has released the results of the BCAS migration study that investigates the migratory trends, the issues, and offers policy recommendations for government, and the private sector, to support the gendered dimensions of migration.
The goal of the project was to ensure that women in communities vulnerable to the impact of climate change access sustainable livelihoods and are agents of change in climate change risk mitigation policy. To understand the results/contributions and lessons learned in the areas of gender equality and climate change the evaluation was planned which is also expected to feed learning into UN Women’s efforts to promote gender equality in Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation in the post-2015 development scenario in Bangladesh. The project had significant impacts over policy and stakeholder’s decision making. UN Women and the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust (BCCT) initiated a series of training workshops on Mainstreaming Gender Equality in Climate Change for government officials. With improved knowledge of and capacity in gender mainstreaming from the perspective of rights in climate change efforts, relevant actors are sensitized to contributing towards gender equality within their sphere of influence.
The rapid economic development over the past few years has accelerated Sri Lanka's global connectivity with increased population mobility both within and across our national borders. It is well recognized that public health is greatly influenced by population mobility. Protecting the health and well-being of migrant populations, their families and host populations is paramount to ensure sustainable development in the country. Since its adoption in 2008, Sri Lanka has progressed rapidly in advancing the 61st World Health Assesmbly resolution on Health of Migrants. My commitment to implementing the migration health agenda extended from my tenure as the Minister of Health to my Presidency. In 2009, the Ministry of Health with the technical and financial assistance of the International Organization for Migration spearheaded a national programme to ensure better health outcomes for the various types of migrant flows; inbound, outbound and internal migration.
As of 15 July 2016, 162 countries have submitted their INDCs, with a technical focus on how to reduce CO2 emissions and reach mitigation targets. Adaptation is often considered as mainly the concern of developing countries – evidenced by the abundance of references to adaptation measures in their submissions. However, it is important for all countries to consider that insufficient mitigation efforts now will most likely mean a need for more adaptation measures in the future. Both mitigation and adaption efforts have immediate and future impacts on the migration patterns of people.
Some States are starting to acknowledge the benefits of migration and migrants’ potential in disaster risk management and adaptation, including through the transfer of competencies or targeted investments. By removing transfer fees or even by creating special funds, Samoa and Indonesia have facilitated fund transfers from their diaspora. Some of these funds are intended to help rebuild after natural disasters. Other countries innovate in investment mechanisms in order to attract their diaspora’s capital towards climate change adaptation projects (for instance, projects that could include marine ecosystems restoration or the development of sustainable fishing techniques).
The purpose of this study is to gather information about specific opportunities and challenges for returnees who wish to apply for a microcredit in five target countries: The Islamic Republic of Iran, Mongolia, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Republic of Senegal and the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka. These countries were chosen because of: (a) their high number of voluntary returns under AVRR programmes from Switzerland; (b) their high relevance to Switzerland, which aims to promote voluntary returns to these countries; or (c) reported difficulties to start a solid business with the granted amount.
Migration and development are interdependent processes, driving change and stimulating new connections between individuals and societies in fields of economics, trade, technology, culture and religion. Human mobility is a means to diversify and strengthen livelihoods, as well as an avenue to escape persecution, conflict and disaster in times of adversity. With more than a billion people on the move in the world – internally and internationally – there is a need to ensure the protection of all migrants so that the full social and economic potential of migration can be realised in both countries of origin and destination.
This Overview Report on Gender and Migration takes a broad approach to migration – it looks at the gender dynamics of both international and the lesser-researched internal migration and the interconnections between the two. People may choose to migrate, or have no choice, or the decision may fall somewhere on the continuum between the two. This report therefore covers both forced and voluntary migration, including covering economic and other voluntary migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons and trafficked people. These migrants in turn come through regular (conforming to legal requirements) or irregular channels.
The outcomes of migration can be diverse and there are clearly lessons to be learned about how to maximise the benefits of migration for women. With this in mind, this special issue sets out to ask the following questions: What do we do to ensure that women do benefit from migration, whether in terms of enjoyment of rights or successful integration? What are the difficulties or challenges that one faces in ensuring that women do benefit from migration on an equal footing? What enabled women to benefit from migration in certain contexts? And what can be learnt from this?
The research found that exploitation and rights violations occur during all phases of their migration. The prevalence of practices associated with modern slavery amongst Indonesian and Filipina domestic workers is high in Hong Kong and especially in Singapore – both key destinations for migrant domestic workers in Asia.
Overall patterns in migration and urbanization can be observed. There is however a lack of empirical data and the absence of systematically collected information of a comparative quality and content, especially in low income countries. This lack of data inhibits a deep understanding of migrants in urban environments. Cities, with their high concentration of migrants, often from different places of origin, offer a unique spatial domain for researching and understanding the dynamics of migration, urbanization and the intersection of national and local governance and policy.
In 2015 and 2016, two global agendas were adopted under the auspices of the United Nations: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the New Urban Agenda. Both are internationally negotiated sets of commitments and priorities which, while not formally binding, can be considered directive for governments and non-governmental actors worldwide. These agendas have considerable political impetus as well as institutional engagement across the international system for their implementation. Both agendas call explicitly for attention to migrants and migration.
The present report contains the results based on the ‘Central Sample’ data collected in the 49th round on several aspects of migration, during the reference period, such as rate & reasons of migration by sex and of households in different social categories of the population, return migration, out-migration and occupational status of migrants as well as the type of structure of their residence before & after migration. This report has been divided into seven chapters under three major sections and begins with ‘Highlights’ of the survey. Section I provides information of general nature viz. Introduction, Concepts & Definitions and Sample Design & Estimation Procedure in chapters I to III respectively. Section II summarises the findings of the survey in four chapters entitled Migrant Households, Migrants, Outmigrants & Return migrants in chapters IV to VII respectively. Section III presents detailed tables under the title ‘Appendix’.
The report processes, analyses and summarises the official and people’s perceptions as well as the research team’s observations as per the NIRD’s prescribed formats and parameters. It brings out the strengths as well as weaknesses of the operationalisation of NREGS in Haryana, points to the evident as well as perceived reasons for the same, and putsforth some concluding observations, suggestions and prescriptions for sprucing up the process of implementation of NREGS in the State, for which the report does indeed find both the need and the scope.
The Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme has been launched in Bihar as a sequel to the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), 2005. It guarantees 100 days of employment in a financial year to any rural household whose adult members are willing to do unskilled manual work. In case of failure to provide the employment, the worker is to be compensated with unemployment allowance. This Scheme has been launched in 23 districts of Bihar in February 2006. Simultaneously, the State has also introduced the Bihar State Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (BREGS) in another 15 districts with funds and on the same pattern as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS).
Ensuring that all migrants, irrespective of their migration status, are free to enjoy their economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) is a fundamental challenge for the universality of human rights proclaimed in 1948. The vast majority of children who move internationally, whether accompanied by their families or as unaccompanied minors, are seeking greater enjoyment of their rights. In this regard, it is important to remember that the deprivation of ESCR in countries of origin is a root cause of migration.
Labor migration from and within Asia is a key and growing component of international migration flows, and the joint roundtable by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on labor migration in Asia bears witness to this. In recent years, Asia has provided a large part of the more skilled migration inflows to OECD countries, even as the global competition to attract skilled and talented workers has intensified. Most of the flows, however, are intra-Asian, and consist mainly of lesser skilled labor.
This study grew out of a twofold engagement with the changes taking place in women’s lives in the era of liberalization and globalization. On one side was the social science researchers’ and women’s studies’ engagement with analysis based on the explicit study of categories, quantitative data, and qualitative observation of relations and developments. On the other side were the compulsions and experience of those engaged in organizing women into mass organizations, whose wide outreach and observations of social processes, had thrown up several questions that they felt were being ignored or sidelined in policy discussions. The idea of this research in fact grew in response to the demand by mass organizations, for better documentation of women’s migration in India amid reports from activists of great increases in and new and more vulnerable forms of female labour migration from the 1990s onwards.
This report presents emerging findings from ongoing research on migrants caught in countries experiencing crisis. This research broadens the evidence base on the situations of migrants in crisis-affected countries, particularly focusing on socio-economic and long-term implications at the micro-, meso- and macro-levels. Conducted by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), the University of Oxford’s International Migration Institute (IMI), and local research partners, ongoing research presented in this report is being carried out in 11 countries1 on six specific crisis situations2 . This report presents the emerging findings and common themes identified from this research thus far. Following the completion of the data collection and fieldwork phase, more comprehensive analysis will be undertaken over the course of 2016 and early 2017 in the form of reports on each case study, as well as an extensive comparative report. A separate and parallel comparative research paper will also be developed covering European responses to crises.
Although migrant workers, refugees and immigrants have been sending money, goods and ideas home for millennia, until about a decade ago donors and international finance agencies paid little attention to the phenomenon. Interest has grown exponentially as statistics show what we now call migrant remittances to be among the most important contributing factors to national economies in several countries. Nearly all the countries in the conflict, war-to-peace transition, and crisis categories are highly dependent on remittances. The slow recovery of livelihoods and persistent violence or repression ensure high levels of migration and the need for remittances in such countries for several years after conflict and crises have ended. By all accounts, migrant remittances reduce poverty in important ways in developing countries. Research shows that migrants transfer funds and invest in their countries of origin at times when international investment has all but disappeared. By serving these purposes in countries emerging from or still experiencing conflicts.
It has long been recognised that a better alternative to protracted limbo and long-term encampment is what has been framed as ‘self-reliance’ – essentially finding ways to offer refugees freedom of movement, the right to work, and support in the pursuit of their own economic opportunities, pending going home. In order to try to support such opportunities, the international community has been through numerous historical attempts to close the socalled ‘relief-to-development gap’, and to try to include refugees within development plans.
This report considers migration in the context of environmental change over the next 50 years. The scope of this report is international: It examines global migration trends, but also internal migration trends particularly within low-income countries, which are often more important in this context. The challenges of migration in the context of environmental change require a new strategic approach to policy. Policy makers will need to take action to reduce the impact of environmental change on communities yet must simultaneously plan for migration. Critical improvements to the lives of millions are more likely to be achieved where migration is seen as offering opportunities as well as challenges.
The India Labour and Employment Report (ILER) aims at bridging this gap by amalgamating information and insights from the available data and research, which is presently available only in a fragmented manner. It also attempts to bring about a better understanding regarding the status, trends and emerging perspectives pertaining to labour markets and employment. Planned as a bi-annual publication to be brought out by the Institute for Human Development (IHD) and the Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), the first Report provides an overview of the labour market and employment outcomes that the Indian economy has delivered during the process of globalization. The Report assesses the gains and losses for labour in the first round of globalization. It reveals many markers of change as well as deep challenges.
This paper , which forms a part of Displacement Solutions’ Climate Change and Displacement Initiative , attempts to begin a structural process of closing this gap by focusing squarely on these issues and proposing strategies to States and the international community on how to best address the housing, land and property dimensions of climate change. It outlines the housing, land and property rights of climate change displaced persons, examines the consequences of climate displacement in four selected countries and proposes a range of rights-based housing, land and property legal and policy measures that can be initiated now in support of climate change displaced persons and their HLP rights. This report urges States to immediately re-double legal and policy efforts within the housing, land and property sectors focused specifically on the rights of climate change displaced persons, and concludes with a series of recommendations to both Governments and the international community designed to improve the HLP rights prospects of climate change displaced persons.
Remittances to Nepal are money transfers from Nepalese workers employed outside the country to friends or relatives in Nepal. Nepal received more than 400 billion Nepalese Rupees as remittances income in the fiscal year 2012 (Economic Survey, Central Bank of Nepal). The figure is likely substantially higher as remittances are routinely underestimated and sent through unregulated or unverifiable sources. Remittances can form a ‘family welfare system’ that can help smooth consumption, alleviate liquidity constraints and provide a form of mutual assistance.
This report reviews the literature and preliminary evidence on the impacts of migration on adolescents’ welfare and access to the realization of their rights. The review allows for identifying gaps in the evidence required for policy formulation. It stresses the need to approach adolescents´ migration from a gender and rights-focused lens and argues that adolescence is a vulnerable stage. Migration can add vulnerabilities and barriers for developing young peoples’ capacities for functioning in society and accessing their rights. An examination of migration-oriented policies in labor sending countries offers suggestions for strengthening migrant adolescents´ capacities through appropriate policies and interventions.
The issue of 'climate change induced forced migration' has receive immense importance in recent discourses. It is evident that the greatest single impact of climate change might be on human migration/displacement; an development estimation of the IPCC First Assessment Report 1990 (IPCC AR1) predicted migration of 150 million people by 2050. More recent studies show an even more terrifying figure of climate change induced migrants: a ten-fold increase from today's entire population of documented refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs). This means that by 2050 one in every 45 people in the world and one in every 7 people in Bangladesh will become displaced by climate change. Although many scholarly articles have warned about future floods of climate change induced migrants, no policy measures have yet been taken; even the terms and concepts referring to climate change induced migrants are found dissimilar throughout the literatures.
Rural-urban migration reduces the pressure of population in the rural areas and, thereby, should improve economic conditions and reduce rural poverty. However, disparities between the urban and rural areas in terms of income and employment as well as the unavailability of basic infrastructure and services persist. Urban areas offer more and better opportunities for socio-economic mobility of the poor and rural-urban migration, therefore, will continue. It is evident that the incidence of poverty is higher in the rural areas than that of the urban areas. Moreover, the rate of reduction in the rural areas of poverty is also higher in the rural areas than the urban areas. This might be occurred due to the accelerated pace of rural-urban migration.
This policy brief gives an overview of the opportunities, risks and vulnerabilities female migrants and refugees face and the implications for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It describes the realities of migration for women and adolescent girls, focusing on the experiences of those working in a range of ‘care’ professions, from domestic workers to nurses and doctors. Mobility and employment create opportunities for female migrants, but gender norms – shared ideas about the different capabilities and ‘natural’ roles of women and men, girls and boys – also create vulnerabilities, as do institutional failures to address discrimination. Gender norms, prevalent in all countries, are a root cause of the gendered division of labour (whether paid or unpaid work), violence against women and girls, and women’s lack of decision-making power – all of which have particular consequences for female migrants. While gender stereotypes and expectations also shape the migration experience of men and boys, this brief focuses on female migrants because they are most likely to be ‘left behind’ in progress towards the 2030 Agenda.
There has been an increasing feminization of internal labour migration in most developing countries over the past few decades [1–9]. Although the reason for internal migration among female migrants, as reported by existing secondary sources in India, is predominantly marriage, there has been an increase in migration for economic reasons [10–14]. While the only major data sources on migration in India (the Census and National Sample Survey [NSS]), provide information on various dimensions of migration, they fail to provide detailed information on the health-related vulnerabilities of migrants. National Family Health Survey (NFHS) of India too has only a proxy indicator to capture the migration status of the respondent, making migration-focussed analysis of health indicators difficult. Further, a few small-scale surveys were conducted to understand the mechanism of male migration, almost no primary study has been conducted on internal female migrants in India [15, 16]. Women migrants are more likely to be vulnerable than their male counterparts in destination areas with regard to health, physical safety and financial means. The Population Council conducted an exploratory study on internal female migrants in Delhi and Mumbai to better understand their socio-economic and health related vulnerabilities. The study entailed a cross-sectional bio-behavioural survey in Delhi and Mumbai. Women aged 18 years or older, who had migrated and were currently working in either of the two study sites, irrespective of their primary reason for migration, were recruited for the study. A total of 1000 female migrants were interviewed for the study. This comprised of 499 respondents from Delhi and 501 from Mumbai.
This report examines the unique factors or circumstances pertaining to HIV and migration in select countries of South and North East Asia that need to be taken into account while planning a response to the epidemic. It highlights an increasing level of mobility in all the seven countries, both within and across national borders. Although some of this mobility is 'formal', much of it is informal or 'irregular'. Further, the findings reinforce the fact that the type of population mobility and the context and conditions in which it occurs - whether under duress or distress, or in unprepared conditions - affects the vulnerability of migrants and their families to HIV.
At least 600,000 people are internally displaced in India due to conflicts in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Gujarat and the North-East. The ceasefire between India and Pakistan in November 2003 substantially improved the security situation along the Line of Control and the international border between Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Information about return movements indicates that many have returned to their villages, although an unverified number still remain in camps. However, attacks and threats by separatist militants continue to hamper the return of India’s largest group of displaced, between 250,000 and 350,000 Kashmiri Hindu Pandits who have been leaving the Kashmir Valley for Jammu and New Delhi since 1989 due to separatist militancy. Violence rose in the run-up to national elections in April and May 2004, and the Pandits who remained in the Valley were once again targeted and many have reportedly fled Kashmir. Communal violence in Gujarat displaced around 100,000 people in February 2002 and the number of people still being displaced is unknown. Despite frequent episodes of violence and discrimination, the Muslim population in Gujarat receives no protection from the state government.
The Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) aims to provide a more holistic picture of the phenomenon, regardless of cause. In time for the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, it also aims to highlight displacement as a multidimensional challenge that must involve humanitarian, sustainable development, peace-building, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation work. It also discusses types of displacement that receive too little attention, such as that associated with generalised criminal violence, gradually-evolving crises such as drought, and development projects. This year’s GRID is an important body of evidence, but it is not the complete picture. We can only be as good as our data, so it also constitutes an appeal for those who collect it to redouble their efforts to provide comprehensive and up-to-date information on all displaced populations.
The aim of the review is to document the different ways in which researchers have thus far approached the challenge of identifying and estimating the costs and benefits of displacement. As such, the review presents a wide array of factors and dynamics which have been of interest to academics, practitioners and policy-makers over the past four decades; in so doing, it does not presuppose that is will be possible, or indeed desirable, to integrate all of these potential impacts in Phase Two of this project.
The Task Force pointed out two structural features of the employment situation in India that made the situation in this country different from others. The first is the distinction between the formal and informal sector employment, or the organized and unorganized sectors as it is called in India, and the second is between wage and self-employment. Large proportions of the work force are engaged in the unorganized sector and are self-employed, as we shall see below. Both these features make it more difficult for the economic policies of the Government of India to have a direct and quick impact on the economy. The positive impact of economic growth may reach the organized sector and wage employed workers faster while making the process of the percolation of the benefits to the rest of the economy more difficult. The purpose of this country case study is to provide estimates of the informal sector and a broader concept of informal employment (defined later) using the official secondary data sources. Some evidence from micro studies will be presented to focus on the kind of workers we refer to and their working conditions.
India is home to the largest number of child labourers in the world. The Census of India Survey 2011, Government of India (GoI) estimated 11.7 million children aged 5-14 years (4.5% of total children in this age group) to be working under hazardous occupations and processes as main and marginal workers (Census Survey of India, Government of India). The census data reflects 7% reduction in child labour in India from 2001 to 2011. Similarly, the total number of child labourers in Delhi has also fallen by 7%, from 42,000 in 2001 to 39,000 in 2011. However, it is important to note the simultaneous rise in the work force of the unorganised sector from a mere 8413 in 2001 to 12,466 in 2011. The decadal rise in the number of marginal workers aged 5-14 years in Delhi is almost seven times the decrease in the overall number of child labourers. (Census Survey of India, Government of India, 2011). Despite the reduction in child labour over the past decade, it is difficult to discount the comparative growth of the child labour in the informal sector.
This manual represents the culmination of a three-year process of research and consultation that I initiated shortly after being appointed Representative of the Secretary General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons. The drafting of the manual was undertaken in furtherance of my mandate to engage in coordinated advocacy in favor of the protection and respect of the human rights of IDPs and, in particular, to continue my “efforts to further the dissemination, promotion and application of the Guiding Principles and to provide support for efforts to promote capacity-building and the use of the Guiding Principles, as well as the development of domestic legislation and policies” (Human Rights Council Resolution 6/32, paragraph 7(c)). The manual proceeds from the recognition that the Guiding Principles, as the key normative framework for addressing internal displacement, require more precise guidelines in order to be properly implemented.
Millions of migrants worldwide send billions of dollars in remittances each year to their families or communities of origin. In many developing countries, remittances are an important source of family and national income and also are the largest source of external financing. Remittances are better targeted at the needs of the poor than foreign aid or foreign direct investment (FDI), as recipients often depend on remittances to cover daily living expenses, to provide a cushion against emergencies, or to make small investments in business or education. Therefore, remittance services should be safe, efficient, and reliable. This can be achieved by increasing competition, enhancing access to payment system infrastructure, improving transparency, and ensuring a sound and predictable legal and regulatory framework.
Over the last few years, studies on domestic work in India have noted the increase in the numbers of migrant female domestic workers in the cities. They have also observed that domestic work is highly informal in its organisation and highlighted the vulnerabilities of domestic workers1 who belong to the poorer and uneducated sections of society. These studies also note that women from marginalised castes form a substantive group of domestic workers (Kaur 2006; Neetha 2004 and 2008). Domestic workers, in particular women domestic workers, are a constantly growing section of workers in the informal sector of urban India. The last three decades have seen a sharp increase in their numbers, especially in contrast to male domestic workers (Neetha 2004). Research has shown that till 2000, the urban workforce participation of women in India has been lower than those of rural women. Marginal increases were observed in 2000-04 (Rustagi 2009). In 2004, the figure of national urban female workforce participation reached an all-time high of 16 percent.2 In 2004-05, there were 3.05 million women domestic workers in urban India marking an increase by 222 percent from 1999-2000 (Chandrashekhar and Ghosh 2007).
This report reviews and analyzes the situation of both Thai and non-Thai domestic workers in Thailand, in particular those working in private households, by drawing on existing reliable information. It hopes to bring out key issues and recommendations which can contribute to the advocacy efforts of ILO and its partners in Thailand in their campaign on decent work for domestic workers.
This report provides a benchmark for the situation of domestic workers across the world against which progress in implementing the new instruments can be measured. In its first part, it takes stock of global and regional statistics on domestic workers to answer two fairly basic, yet fundamental questions: How many domestic workers are there? How has their number evolved over time? To arrive at some answers, it starts by defining domestic workers in statistical terms and identifies measurement issues that are likely to create a downward bias in global and regional statistics (see Chapter 2). It then presents new ILO estimates on the number of domestic workers across the world, totalling at least 52.6 million men and women across the world in 2010. This represents an increase of more than 19 million since the mid-1990s. Most strikingly, domestic work accounts for 7.5 per cent of women’s wage employment world-wide, and a far greater share in some regions.
India’s status as a preferred refugee haven is confirmed by the steady flow of refugees from many of its subcontinental neighbours as also from elsewhere. India continues to receive them despite its own over-a-billion population with at least six hundred million living in poverty with limited access to basic amenities. However, the Indian legal framework has no uniform law to deal with its huge refugee population, and has not made any progress towards evolving one either; until then, it chooses to treat incoming refugees based on their national origin and political considerations, questioning the uniformity of rights and privileges granted to refugee communities. Indeed, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has submitted numerous reports1 urging the promulgation of a national law, or at least, making changes or amendments to the outdated Foreigners Act (1946), which is the current law consulted by authorities with regard to refugees and asylum seekers.
In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration—with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption. Since then various analysts have tried to put numbers on future flows of climate migrants (sometimes called “climate refugees”)—the most widely repeated prediction being 200 million by 2050. But repetition does not make the figure any more accurate. While the scientific argument for climate change is increasingly confident, the consequences of climate change for human population distribution are unclear and unpredictable. With so many other social, economic and environmental factors at work establishing a linear, causative relationship between anthropogenic climate change and migration has, to date, been difficult.
Children are the greatest gift to humanity and Childhood is an important and impressionable stage of human development as it holds the potential to the future development of any society. Children who are brought up in an environment, which is conducive to their intellectual, physical and social health, grow up to be responsible and productive members of society. Every nation links its future with the present status of its children. By performing work when they are too young for the task, children unduly reduce their present welfare or their future income earning capabilities, either by shrinking their future external choice sets or by reducing their own future individual productive capabilities. Under extreme economic distress, children are forced to forego educational opportunities and take up jobs which are mostly exploitative as they are usually underpaid and engaged in hazardous conditions. Parents decide to send their child for engaging in a job as a desperate measure due to poor economic conditions.
Child labour refers to the exploitation of the labour of children who are either too young to work, or are of working age but work under conditions that subject them to risk. It is an unfortunate reality that children worldwide are often forced to undertake work that is physically, psychologically and morally damaging to them. Nonetheless, not all work performed by children is classified as child labour. In fact, some light work that does not interfere with the child’s development, their education, or health, such as helping parents around the home, or earning pocket money outside of school hours or on holidays, can be a positive experience for children. The term child labour therefore does not generally apply to children between the ages of 12-14 that engage in light work or to children between the ages of 15-17 who work in non-hazardous conditions.
The study aims to strengthen the evidence base on child labor and the labor conditions of migrant workers in Thailand’s shrimp and other seafood supply chains, with a particular focus on communities engaged in these industries. Its objective is to provide practical, empirically grounded policy recommendations that can be discussed with different stakeholders and considered by both national and provincial governments and industry. The study draws on a combination of existing evidence and data from the ILO’s work in Thailand and supplementary qualitative information generated through focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and consultations with stakeholders.
Child migration for paid work which results in exploitation is an emerging issue in Vietnam, particularly for child migrants from the central provinces of Vietnam. This research aimed to explore the background and causes leading to child labour migration, the experiences that children have of working as migrants and the process by which they return to their village. It focused on children who migrated from the central province of Hue to Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City) in the south of Vietnam. The research was conducted between 1 to 5 January 2011 inclusive in Hai Tien village and Vinh Hung Commune, Phu Loc district, Thua Thien Hue Province (Hue Province), Vietnam using ethical procedures approved by the Monash University Human Research and Ethics Committee.
The bulk of information used in this report was collected in April 2015 from 7,295 internal labour migrants, through a survey designed specifically to determine patterns in internal labour migration, human trafficking and forced labour according to national and international law. Respondents were interviewed in 111 townships regarding jobs spanning 273 townships across all of the 14 states/regions in Myanmar. Respondents were chosen from a range of industries, including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, mining, fishing, hotels, food/ beverage services and domestic services, among others. The findings were supplemented with qualitative input from individual interviews and group discussions with internal labour migrants, government authorities and representatives of UN agencies, international non-governmental organizations and local organizations working on migration, trafficking and labour issues.
With labour flows showing increasing heterogeneity the world over, there is a renewed interest in managing labour mobility so as to enhance the developmental potential of migration. In this context, this research study attempts to enhance the knowledge base pertaining to three core issues: (i) organizational structures to manage labour migration; (ii) various migrant services being extended by the state; and (iii) financing of protection of migrant workers. The study adopts a comparative perspective and provides a detailed analysis of the core issues in relation to India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka, three major labour-sending counties. The conceptual framework of the study presumes that migration management in countries of origin consists of three domains: regulation and (in certain countries) promotion of labour migration and support services; administrative structures; and financing. The study acknowledges the importance of each of these domains while also stressing the interdependence among them.
The Global Slavery Index is based on state of the art research methodology that has been developed with the assistance of an independent Expert Working Group, comprised of world leading experts. The methodology has also been subjected to independent external review. This estimate is based on data from nationally representative, random sample surveys conducted in 25 countries. All surveys were conducted face-to-face in key local languages using a standardised instrument. Collectively, these surveys represent 44 percent of the global population. The results of these surveys have been extrapolated to countries with an equivalent risk profile.
Bangladesh inherited the long practice of conducting the population census on decennial basis since 1872. The last Population and Housing Census in Bangladesh was conducted during March 15-19, 2011. It is an attempt to provide a general scenario of internal migration and urbanization in Bangladesh using census 2011 and compared with previous censuses. This study would help in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in relation to internal migration, urbanization, and combat climate change and its impact. The size of the population according to the census 2011 is 144.04 million among which male is 72.11 million and female is 71.93 million. Among the total population 76.7% live in rural and 23.3% live in urban. The change and pattern of population is observed from 1901 to 2011. The size of the population gradually increases. After independence population density in 1974 was 484 and in 2011 density are 976. At present the density is maximum in Dhaka and minimum in Barisal division.
The Gujarat Government’s Migration Card initiative helps track inter-state and intra-state migration of school-going children, and the Migration Monitoring Software, introduced in 2009, has enabled tracking and streamlining of implementation in real time. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in Gujarat has used this programme successfully to accommodate and educate migrant children in seasonal hostels and in Tent Special Training Programmes. The programme has helped increase retention under elementary education of children who migrate with parents looking for seasonal employment and reduce the drop-out rates of girls in primary education.
MPI's Demetrios Papademetriou discusses the current policy responses to the refugee and migration crisis at EU and national levels, and possible options for dealing more effectively with the crisis and longer-term integration challenges. Recently returned from several months working in Brussels, Papademetriou sketches the near- and longer-term policy proposals that the European Union and its Member States should consider for Europe, countries of first asylum such as Turkey, and within Syria to help end the chaotic, spontaneous flows of migrants and bring some order and legality to the system while also assuring a greater focus on the longer-term integration challenges.
Environmental events are already causing people to move in Asia and Pacific region. By taking actions today, governments can reduce the likelihood of future humanitarian crises and maximize the possibilities that people can remain in their communities or – should deteriorating environmental conditions make that impractical – that they have the real option to relocate to a more secure place with livelihood options.
Migration is a global and growing phenomenon. Migration comprises different kinds of movements: for employment, for family reasons, for study, or forced migration as a result of conflict or natural disasters. In Asia, international migration is most often about seeking employment, although all kinds of movement can be found. This chapter focuses on labor migration in Asia and by Asians around the world. It also looks at migration of Asians for study, at the labor market situation of Asian emigrants, and at the remittances they send home.
This Overview Report on Gender and Migration takes a broad approach to migration – it looks at the gender dynamics of both international and the lesser-researched internal migration and the interconnections between the two. People may choose to migrate, or have no choice, or the decision may fall somewhere on the continuum between the two. This report therefore covers both forced and voluntary migration, including covering economic and other voluntary migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons and trafficked people. These migrants in turn come through regular (conforming to legal requirements) or irregular channels.
Inter-state differences on Labour Force Participation Rate and/or Unemployment rate also throw some surprises. Some of the States having pro-labour-rights policies have not performed well in terms of unemployment rate. The report is however not intended to arrive at any finding on the trade-off or complimentarily between/of the pro-labourrights and pro-labour reform policies. It may perhaps be advisable for the State Governments to take cognisance of inter-state differences in framing labour-market policies.
In the Indian context, out-migration is generally from remote backward rural areas of the country (majority from Bihar and UP as reflected in Census 2001), the in migration of referred sections of society is to all major industrial towns in economically better states. The labour recruiters, human trafficking network – all play quite significant role, in the migration of disadvantaged sections of society (poor, landless unskilled, SC/ST/OBC, women, adolescent groups etc). Towns and villages of Punjab are the destination of large-scale spatial mobility of unskilled populations from rural areas of backward states especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. These migrants reach Punjab from all over the country individually as well as in groups with or without the help of contractors/agents. According to newspaper (Tribune), the population of migrant labour in Punjab has reached 2.5 million with Ludhiana being its focal point. Punjab’s entire agriculture, paddy, plantation and allied fields such as poultry and dairy are almost fully dependant on migrant labour. The same is reflected in the case of small and medium scale industries. The steel, iron, sugar, wool, knitwear etc. are also heavily dependant on migrant labour.
This report investigates the intersection of labor migration and the inclusive growth agenda, with the goal of recommending specific policy interventions that can enable the Indonesian government and the governments of other origin countries to (a) limit the threats labor migration poses to inclusive, sustainable and rights-based development, and (b) expand the positive impacts of labor migration by making migrant workers agents in promoting and realizing an inclusive growth agenda in their origin communities.
The Migration and Remittances Factbook 2016 provides a comprehensive picture of emigration, immigration, and remittance flows for 214 countries and territories and 15 country groups, drawing on authoritative, publicly available data. The current edition of the Factbook updates the information in the 2011 edition with data collected from various sources, including national censuses, labor force surveys, and population registers. In addition, for each country and regional grouping from the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (World Bank 2015), it provides selected socioeconomic characteristics such as population, labor force, age-dependency ratio, gross national income per capita, and poverty headcount.
This report examines the political predicament that confronts governments and other political actors when they address the issue of irregular migration. Primarily, it sets out the rights, and claims to protection, that migrants are entitled to make under international human rights law and other forms of international law. Recognising that states have a responsibility to manage their borders, and that states and the societies they govern have a common interest in promoting their prosperity, it argues that it is not in fact in the real interest of governments to criminalise or scapegoat irregular migration. Migration brings many benefits, as well as some costs. Moreover, it is an ancient feature of human society that states cannot suppress without sacrificing values that are fundamental to social wellbeing and trust. In terms that we hope are realistic, the report argues that, for ethical reasons but also reasons of interest, states should shun xenophobic rhetoric, which permeates most public discussion of irregular migration and policies designed to address it. Instead, states should affirm their commitment to protect the rights of all those who fall within their legal responsibility, including migrants, because they too are human beings entitled to protection.
MGNREGA is one of the most important and largest public programme in India. The main objective of this programme is to provide 100 days of assured employment to rural household and to create sustainable asset. In this paper we have studied the secondary objective of MGNREGA that is to reduce migration and creation of sustainable asset. In this paper we work on migration data for 2007-08 NSSO data. By our analysis we find that Migration is a complex process, it is not always done due to poverty and desperate situation, but complex factors (facilities, education). People are migrating due to lack of adequate agricultural land, inadequate agricultural production, less irrigation facility, and acute water scarcity. At the meso level analysis, correlation between MGNREGA and Migration is very weak. From the literature as well as supported by the micro-assessment, MGNREGA is helping poor and weaker section of the community by providing employment at critical period of a year (seasonal migration). In principal, NREGA can help to reduce temporary migration but is ineffective in long period, when several factors would change together.
The studies in this publication offer both fresh analysis and novel solutions on migration in the context of natural disasters. They cover a wide variety of situations, including, for instance, proposed infrastructure and public works projects to enhance resilience to flooding in Bangkok, Thailand; an examination of the efficacy of circular migration policies enacted in response to flooding in Colombia; and an analysis of policy responses to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. These articles offer concrete assessments of current shortcomings in policies related to disaster risk reduction and steps that can be taken to enhance preparedness and response capacity. Other papers examine potential approaches to mitigating slowonset climate change in countries such as Spain and Mexico, highlighting the severe humanitarian consequences resulting from a type of climatic disaster that is too often overlooked. While each paper addresses a specific situation, they all emphasize how migration policy can be used as a tool to manage the pressing needs of vulnerable communities to adapt to disparate environmental hazards.
The consequences of climate change on migration present humanity with an unprecedented challenge. The numbers of storms, droughts and floods have increased threefold over the last 30 years with devastating affects on vulnerable communities, particularly in the developing world. In 2008, 20 million persons have been displaced by extreme weather events, compared to 4.6 million internally displaced by conflict and violence over the same period. How many people will be affected by climate change by 2050? Forecasts vary from 25 million to 1 billion people with a figure of 200 million being the most widely cited estimate. The main purpose of this new book is to suggest concrete ways in which the international community can begin to address the huge gaps in our knowledge relating to the likely impact of climate change on migration. The book does this by taking stock of the existing evidence on the effects of climate change and environmental degradation on migration, providing a comprehensive overview of the findings of recent research studies. Throughout, our focus is centred on how research can best inform policy and provide the evidence which decision-makers will need in the future to plan for and respond to environmentally induced migration.
This paper provides a comprehensive assessment of international migration in the Asia-Pacific region and reviews internal migration in China. After putting Asia-Pacific migration in a global context, it reviews trends in migration and the impacts of migrants in the major migrant receiving countries, patterns of migration and their development impacts in migrant-sending countries, the human development impacts of migration, and three policy issues, viz, new seasonal worker programs for Pacific Islanders in New Zealand and Australia, required local sponsorship of foreigners in the Gulf countries, and the economic effects of migrants in the US and Thailand. Recent trends in internal migration in China, which shares attributes of international migration because of the hukou (household registration) system, are also assessed.
Based on a desk review of literature and consultations with field staff, this working paper explores how migration - both internal and international – can affect children’s involvement in child labour. The paper focuses on voluntary migration, excludes child trafficking8 and distinguishes three categories as follows: 1) children who migrate with their parents (i.e. family migration), 2) independent child migrants, and 3) children left-behind by migrant parents. The link to child labour of each of these categories is explored below, followed by a series of strategic considerations for action. In reviewing evidence related to the three categories, both internal and international migration are covered interchangeably
The Report is a highlight about the data from world over on the migration patterns. The report is a brief on the number of migrants, Main recent global migration trends, Forced migration,Irregular migration, Human Trafficking and Forced Labour, Remittances, National immigration policies, labour and skill shortages
India has large number of its citizens living abroad temporarily or permanently on account of education, employment and other related reasons. These citizens were not able to participate in election process i.e. registration and voting due to the then prevailing law which required that only a citizen ordinarily resident within the territorial limits of a constituency in the country is eligible to be registered as voter in that constituency. Consequently, a huge population of citizens of India living abroad also known as non-resident Indian (NRIs) were not able to enrol themselves as voters in their home constituencies and were not able to exercise their franchise.
Domestic workers are largely migrants to cities. The majority of domestic workers are members of the so-called backward and scheduled castes and of late, young girls from tribal communities. Domestic workers income is a primary source of stable earnings for the family. This fact of the centrality of their income to household survival, their residence in slums and the consequent poor access to basic needs such as housing, sanitation, drinking water conditions, limits the work they do, the working hours they keep and constrains their bargaining position in the labor market. Expenditure on transportation and demands of child care and responsibilities of one’s own household work are other important factors that influence the decisions of workplace and negotiations for remuneration of domestic workers.
The Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions (APF) is pleased to present Promoting and Protecting the Rights of Migrant Workers: The Role of National Human Rights Institutions. National human rights institutions (NHRIs) – whether they are human rights commissions or ombudsman offices – can play a crucial role in advancing the rights of migrant workers, especially NHRIs that are established in accordance with the Paris Principles.1 The manual aims to support and strengthen the work of NHRIs in countries of origin, transit and destination to identify and respond effectively to the human rights issues facing migrant workers and members of their families.
In this overview paper, basic questions related to voluntary internal migration are revisited with a view to adding some of the substantial new field evidence that has emerged in recent years and setting out the policy implications of these findings. The paper addresses internal voluntary migration for paid work. It includes both permanent and temporary migration as well as rural-rural, rural-urban, urban-rural and urban-urban migration. However it does not include forced removal and relocation of people under development and social engineering programmes, trafficking and slavery or displacement by war and civil unrest. It does not discuss nomadic livelihood systems, transhumant graziers or migratory fishing communities although some of the generic arguments will apply to them too.
Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011 provides a comprehensive picture of emigration, skilled emigration, immigration, and remittance flows for 210 countries and 15 country groups, drawing on authoritative, publicly available data. The current edition of the Factbook updates the information in the popular 2008 edition with additional data for 71 countries collected from various sources, including national censuses, labor force surveys, population registers, and other national sources. In addition, it provides selected socioeconomic characteristics such as population, labor force, age dependency ratio, gross national income (GNI) per capita, and poverty headcount for each country and regional grouping.
The period covered by this document is from the inception of SVEEP in late 2009 till 2014 when the Commission is engaged in conceptualising phase III of SVEEP. At the same time, this is not just a compilation of SVEEP experience in Indian election; it also looks at some of the lessons learnt at national, state, district and constituency levels.
This regional study commissioned by The Asia Foundation entitled “Labour Migration: Trends and Patterns” examines the patterns and process of labour migration by Nepali and Bangladeshi migrant workers using formal and informal channels for migration primarily to Gulf countries. The study provides insights into the dimensions of both regular and irregular labour migration and reviews the links, if any, with labour exploitation and human trafficking; and examines factors promoting undocumented migration that leads to increased vulnerability. The study examines the challenges posed to safe labour migration along the regional migration corridor of Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. It also highlights some salient features that threaten safe mobility of people between and through these three countries. This study has been strengthened through consultation with government and civil society stakeholders from Bangladesh, Nepal, and India at a workshop co-hosted by The Asia Foundation and the Center for Development Studies (CDS) in Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
The study compiled information from academic papers, government and non-government reports on the subject of domestic migration, with a specific emphasis on their political inclusion. The study also checked websites of international organizations such as The World Bank Group, International Monetary Fund and International Labour Organization. It also reviewed old ECI publications and constituent assembly debates to identify if there were any examples from history where special provisions were made for domestic migrants. To ascertain that the study included all relevant secondary data, the team also searched the International Household Survey Network (IHSN) and Dataverse.org to find if there were any publically available micro data that could be used for the present study. However, owing to data availability limitations, only the following secondary data were utilized in this study: (a) Census of India 2001 was used to report migration rates across districts, and (b) Voter turnout data from ECI's statistical reports of elections to state legislative assemblies.
The Asia-Pacific Migration Report 2015: Migrants' Contributions to Development provides evidence on how to achieve this target. The Report assesses the development impacts of migrants in the countries of the Asia-Pacific region and provides guidance on the steps countries, regional organizations, civil society actors and others can take to improve these impacts, notably through securing the rights of migrants and ensuring their access to social protection and decent work, both through national policies and multilateral dialogue and cooperation. It builds on subregional reports published on migration in East Asia and South-East Asia in 2008 and South and South-West Asia in 2012. However, the Asia-Pacific Migration Report 2015 is unique in that it is the first report of its kind to address international migration in the region as a whole, from Turkey and the Russian Federation in the west to Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga in the east.
The paper discusses how gaps in both the data on migration and the understanding of the role of migration in livelihood strategies and economic growth in India, have led to inaccurate policy prescriptions and a lack of political commitment to improving the living and working conditions of migrants. Field evidence from major migrant employing sectors is synthesised to show that circular migration is the dominant form of economic mobility for the poor; especially the lower castes and tribes. The authors argue that the human costs of migration are high due to faulty implementation of protective legislation and loopholes in the law and not due to migration per se. The paper discusses child labour in specific migration streams in detail stressing that this issue needs to be addressed in parallel. It also highlights the non-economic drivers and outcomes of migration that need to be considered when understanding its impacts. The authors calculate that there are roughly 100 million circular migrants in India contributing 10% to the national GDP. New vulnerabilities created by the economic recession are discussed. Detailed analysis of village resurveys in Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh are also presented and these show conclusively that migration is an important route out of poverty
This study aims to provide policy-makers and service providers with deeper insight into the nature of forced labour and trafficking in this region. Armed with this knowledge, action to combat trafficking in the region will become more effective, finally bringing an end to this unacceptable form of human exploitation.
In recent decades Thailand has evolved into a regional migration hub in South-East Asia, and is concurrently a country of origin, transit and destination for large numbers of both regular and irregular international migrants. With a dynamic economy, there is also a great deal of internal migration, including circular and seasonal migration. However, the highly dynamic nature of migration trends and patterns in Thailand makes the timely formation of comprehensive and coherent migration policies very challenging.
Migrants constitute a ‘floating’ and invisible population, alternating between source and destination areas and remaining on the periphery of society. In India, internal migration has been accorded very low priority by the government, and policies of the Indian state have largely failed in providing any form of legal or social protection to this vulnerable group. Internal migration can expand people’s freedoms and capabilities and make substantial contributions to human development in terms of improved incomes, education and health. Although migration can potentially benefit migrants and their families, there are also heavy costs and risks that compromise the potentially positive outcomes of migration.