Migration: Causes, Challenges and Legal Rights

This paper is an attempt to understand the emerging migration patterns in India and the issues underlying them. With globalization, urbanization and accompanying changes in socio-economic conditions, migrants have been attracted to urban areas in recent times. The emerging migration pattern depicts the confinement of migrants in lower socio-economic classes in Urban India in response to the macroeconomic reforms. The National Sample Survey data (2007/08) on Migration reveals a gloomy and divergent picture of recent migrants who have migrated prior to five years. Inter-state Migration among males to urban areas shows precedence growth reflecting the Migration of people from lower socio-economic classes. The negative interrelationship between per capita income and interstate migration rate further confirms it. A steady increase of urban migrants in the lower economic class indicates Migration is dominated by poorer sections. This finding is completely different from the last NSS round, where a direct relationship between the economic status of the individual and inclination to Migration has been noticed. The reason for such a divergent pattern of Migration within a period of 10 years really needs to be investigated. Higher Migration of lower social groups takes place in an urban area compared to an earlier period. All these variations in migration patterns are attributed to rural-urban disparities in socio-economic development and increasing urbanization. Given the current development and growth of urbanization increasing regional disparities, it is likely that Migration to the urban area will accentuate more in future due to the changing nature of the economy. Hence, an enquiry into the changing pattern of Migration is critical to explore the emerging issues identify the challenges and main precedence required at the policy level for urban development.