Migration

Imagine you’re watching a crowd at a railway station. Some people are leaving their hometowns forever; others are arriving at a new place with all their belongings, ready to start a new chapter. This movement, when it’s not temporary but involves a permanent change of residence, is what we call Migration.

What is Migration?

Migration is a form of spatial mobility—that means movement across geographical space. But not every movement is called migration.

Key Point: Migration involves permanent change of residence from one geographical unit (like a village, town, district, or country) to another.

So, if someone moves to another city just for a 15-day vacation, that’s not migration. But if they shift base permanently—say, for a job or marriage—that is migration.

How Does the Census of India Define Migration?

Now, how do we identify a migrant? The Census of India gives us two main lenses:

A. Migration by Place of Birth

If a person is enumerated (counted) during the Census in a place different from where they were born, they are called a migrant by place of birth.

🔸 Example: Rajesh was born in Kanpur but was counted during the Census in Delhi. Rajesh is a migrant by place of birth.

B. Migration by Place of Last Residence

If someone’s last residence was different from the place where they are now counted, they are a migrant by place of last residence.

🔸 Example: Anita used to live in Pune but recently shifted to Mumbai before the Census. Now, she is counted as a migrant by place of last residence.

This distinction helps us understand how long-term the movement is and why it happened.

Why is Migration So Important in Population Geography?

In population studies, we mainly talk about three components that change the size and structure of a population:

1. Fertility (births)
2. Mortality (deaths)
3. Migration (movement)

Among these, migration holds a special place because it’s the only one that affects both the area of origin (where people leave from) and the area of destination (where they go to).

Think of migration as a see-saw—when one side goes down (losing people), the other side goes up (gaining people). Fertility and mortality affect the total number, but migration redistributes the population.

🧭 Classification of Migration

Migration is like a story of movement—why people move, how far they go, and for how long they stay. To understand this phenomenon thoroughly, geographers classify it on three major bases:

1. Cause-Based Classification – Why do people migrate?

Just like in life, actions are driven by reasons. Similarly, migration has causes—and these are often rooted in the human experience of needs, survival, and aspirations.

Type of Cause	Explanation	Examples
Economic Migration	People move in search of employment, income, or a better standard of living.	Bihar workers migrating to Punjab for agricultural work.
Social Migration	Motivated by family ties, marriage, or cultural connections.	A bride moving to her husband’s home (marriage migration).
Political Migration	Due to conflict, persecution, or political instability.	Refugees fleeing Syria or Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar.
Environmental Migration	Triggered by natural disasters, climate change, or droughts.	Migration due to floods in Assam or desertification in Rajasthan.

2. Distance-Based Classification – How far do they move?

Here, the idea is simple: the farther the move, the deeper the impact—on culture, economy, and planning.

Type of Migration	Explanation	Examples
Long-Distance Migration	Movement across countries or continents; often international.	Indians migrating to the USA or Gulf nations.
Short-Distance Migration	Within the same country—like rural to urban migration.	A villager moving to a nearby town for work.

📌 Note: Even short-distance migration can drastically impact urban planning, transport, and housing—especially in developing countries like India.

3. Duration-Based Classification – How long do they stay?

This is about time—whether the migration is temporary like a contract job, or permanent, where people resettle entirely.

Type of Duration	Explanation	Examples
Short-Duration Migration	Seasonal or circular migration; often linked to agriculture.	Tribal laborers moving for sugarcane harvests.
Long-Duration Migration	Permanent or long-term relocation.	IT professionals settling in Bengaluru.

🔄 Insight: Short-term migration often leads to circulation—a to-and-fro movement—whereas long-term migration results in urban expansion and demographic change.

🧭 Types of Migration

Migration is not just movement—it’s a pattern that reflects human needs, pressures, and geography. Based on direction, duration, and motivation, we classify migration into the following distinct types:

1. Cyclic or Circulatory Migration

• Definition: Temporary, repetitive movements that don’t involve permanent settlement.
• Examples:
  • Nomadism: Communities move seasonally for grazing (e.g., Gujjars in Himalayas).
  • Transhumance: Seasonal migration with livestock between fixed summer and winter pastures (e.g., Bakarwals of Jammu & Kashmir).

📌 Note: These are not counted as migration in census data due to their repetitive, non-permanent nature.

2. Internal vs. External Migration

Type	Explanation	Examples
Internal Migration	Within the same country—no international boundary is crossed.	Bihar to Delhi for job; rural to urban migration within Maharashtra.
International Migration	Across national borders, often influenced by push-pull factors.	Bangladeshis to West Bengal; Nepalis to Uttarakhand; Srilankans to Tamil Nadu.

💡 Insights for UPSC:

• India’s scenario:
  • Largest number of legal and illegal international migrants from Bangladesh.
  • Nepalese are seen across many Indian states due to open Indo-Nepal border.
  • Srilankan Tamils settled mainly in Tamil Nadu.
  • African students come for education, especially in metro cities.

3. Forced or Impelled Migration

• Definition: People are compelled to move due to external pressure, not choice.
• Causes: War, famine, epidemics, persecution, dictatorship.
• Examples:
  • Rohingya crisis.
  • Partition of India in 1947.
  • Kashmiri Pandit exodus in 1990s.
• Note: Census of India does not classify disaster-based movement as “migration”.

🛑 This type of migration has long-term social, economic, and political implications.

4. Periodic Migration

• Definition: Temporary movement for a specific purpose, not involving permanent relocation.
• Examples:
  • Pilgrimage (e.g., Kumbh Mela).
  • Business trips.
  • Cultural fairs or religious gatherings.

📍Such migrations are seasonal or event-based, contributing to temporary urban crowding.

5. Reverse Migration

• Definition: Return of migrants back to their place of origin.
• Examples:
  • During 2008 global economic crisis, many Indians returned from Gulf countries.
  • During COVID-19 lockdown (2020), large-scale return of migrant workers from cities to villages.

🚧 It reflects urban stress, loss of livelihood, and policy failure in migrant welfare.

🧩 Interrelationship Between Poverty and Migration in India

Migration and poverty are like two sides of the same coin—deeply interconnected.

1. Poverty Pushes People to Migrate

• In poor villages, lack of opportunities forces people to migrate for survival.
• Migration becomes a coping strategy—a way to escape crushing poverty.

2. Migration Can Reduce Poverty

• Those with basic education or skills often get better jobs.
• They send remittances home—improving health, education, nutrition.
• Urban jobs = more income → Better chance of social mobility.

Example: A boy from Jharkhand works in a textile mill in Surat, earns ₹8,000/month—sends money home, his brother studies further.

3. But Not Everyone Benefits Equally

• Forced migrants (like Dalits, landless laborers) often remain trapped.
• Children drop out of school, women bear double burden, health issues worsen due to slums and poor sanitation.
• Chronically poor families see no long-term benefit from migration.

A poor peasant moves to a city, but ends up in a slum with no water, no school for his children. He’s earning, but not growing.

4. Vicious Cycle: Migration Can Deepen Poverty

• Especially for the uneducated and socially backward.
• Loss of family support, poor healthcare, unsafe housing all add up.

5. Government Interventions

• MGNREGA: Offers 100 days of rural employment—reduces the need to migrate.
• National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM): Promotes self-employment, skills.

These schemes help break the migration-poverty trap—by generating rural income locally.

🧭 Understanding the Reasons for Migration

Migration is a human response to imbalance—when a person feels that their current place is not able to meet certain basic or aspirational needs, they start thinking about moving elsewhere.

This movement—whether temporary or permanent, short-distance or long—is triggered by several economic, social, and political factors.

Let’s understand these reasons:

1. Marriage – A Cultural Compulsion for Women

In India, marriage is not just a family event—it’s a major driver of migration, especially among women.

• Culturally, after marriage, the bride is expected to move to the husband’s home, which is often in a different village, town, or even state.
• Hence, almost every married woman becomes a migrant, even if she stays within the same district.
• According to the 2011 Census, over about 2 of every 3 of migrants in India shifted residence due to marriage.

🔍 Note: This pattern is unique to patriarchal societies like India, where residence is patrilocal. So, migration here is not always economic—sometimes, it’s socially structured.

2. Employment – The Economic Backbone of Migration

Now let’s talk about perhaps the most obvious and dominant reason—employment.

• Rural areas are primarily agricultural economies, but:
  • Land is limited.
  • Productivity is low.
  • Too many people depend on farming.
• Even cottage industries and small-scale local setups are unable to employ everyone.

So what happens?

• Urban areas, on the other hand, offer:
  • Industrial jobs
  • Trade and transport roles
  • Service sector opportunities

🏙️ Urban areas act like economic magnets, attracting unemployed or underemployed people from villages.

💡 Analogy: Think of villages as dry wells and cities as overflowing tanks. Naturally, water (or people) flows from where it’s scarce to where it’s abundant.

3. Education – Migration for a Better Tomorrow

This is about aspiration and the search for self-betterment.

• Rural India often lacks quality educational institutions, especially for higher and technical education.
• So, students migrate to urban centres like district towns or state capitals to study.
• And after completing their studies, they often find employment in the same urban areas, making their migration semi-permanent or permanent.

🎓 In this sense, education is both a push (due to lack in villages) and a pull (due to availability in cities).

4. Lack of Security – Migration Out of Compulsion

Sometimes, migration is not a choice. It’s a compulsion, driven by political or social instability.

• People leave their homes due to:
  • Terrorism
  • Ethnic or communal conflict
  • Political disturbances
• For example:
  • In Jammu & Kashmir and Assam, such disturbances have led to large-scale migration.
• Even apart from long-term relocation, people sometimes migrate temporarily to nearby towns for:
  • Medical treatment
  • Legal services
  • Recreation or mental peace

⚠️ This type of migration is more about safety and survival than aspiration or economics.

🌪️ Push and Pull Factors – The Core Framework of Migration

To understand why migration happens, geographers often use a simple but powerful model: Push and Pull Factors.

✅ Pull Factors – “Attractive Forces”

These are the positive aspects of the destination place that attract migrants.

• Availability of jobs
• Better education
• Modern healthcare
• Improved transport and housing
• Entertainment and lifestyle facilities

🧲 Pull factors work like magnets—they draw people in.

❌ Push Factors – “Repelling Forces”

These are the negative conditions of the origin place that force people to leave.

• Poverty and hunger
• Unemployment
• Lack of services
• Poor governance or safety
• Droughts or natural disasters

🚪 Push factors work like a closed door—they push people out due to lack of opportunity or danger.

🧩 Final Thoughts

Migration is not just about people changing places. It is about the search for a dignified life, the aspiration to grow, and the need to survive.

Whether a woman moves due to marriage, a young man due to a job, a student for a degree, or a family for safety—each form of migration tells a human story tied deeply with geography, culture, and economics.

Understanding migration through push and pull factors helps us analyze it objectively, without judgment—recognizing both the problems of the place people leave and the opportunities of the place they move to.

🔍 Understanding the Consequences of Migration (in Indian Context)

Migration is like a natural response mechanism—people shift from one place to another because their current location is either not fulfilling their needs, or they are attracted to a better opportunity elsewhere. Just as water flows from high pressure to low pressure, people move from low-opportunity areas to high-opportunity zones.

Migration in India happens due to a combination of economic, social, and political factors. Let’s break them down one by one.

1. Marriage: The Dominant Social Cause

In Indian society, marriage is the biggest social reason behind migration, especially for women.

• Imagine a traditional Indian wedding: after the ceremony, it is culturally expected that the bride moves to the husband’s home—often in another town, district, or even state.
• So, every married woman is practically a migrant.
• According to 2011 Census, over 66% of total migration was due to marriage.
• This means that if you ask a random group of women in India whether they’ve migrated due to marriage, more than half will say yes.

📘 Analogy: Think of it like a “rite of passage” in Indian society—marriage automatically involves migration for most women, making it a unique cultural feature in population geography.

2. Employment: The Primary Economic Driver

Now come the economic reasons—employment being the most significant.

• Rural areas in India suffer from an agricultural crisis—not enough land, low productivity, and too many people dependent on farming.
• Small-scale industries or cottage industries in villages are also not enough to absorb all the rural labor force.
• So, cities appear attractive because they offer:
  • Jobs in industries
  • Opportunities in trade and transport
  • Growth in service sector

✅ Thus, people migrate from rural to urban areas because of this economic pull.

3. Education: Migration for a Better Future

This is the story of almost every aspiring student from a village.

• Villages often lack quality education, especially at higher levels.
• So, children move to towns and cities to pursue schooling, graduation, or professional courses.
• After completing education, many choose to stay in the city for employment, thereby becoming permanent migrants.

🎓 For many, education is not just a path to knowledge—it’s a path to migration and social mobility.

4. Lack of Security: A Political and Safety Concern

This is a forced migration scenario—not by choice, but by compulsion.

• Regions facing political unrest, communal violence, or ethnic conflicts see an exodus of population.
• For instance:
  • Jammu & Kashmir and Assam have witnessed people leaving their homes due to safety concerns.
• People also migrate temporarily for services like:
  • Health care
  • Legal support
  • Recreational needs
  • Short-term employment

🔚 Conclusion

So, to wrap it up:

• Migration is not random. It is a logical outcome of differential development, both socially and economically.
• Whether it is a woman migrating for marriage, a youth for education or job, or a family escaping conflict—each case has its own context but follows the same principle: either being pushed by hardships or pulled by opportunities.

Migration in India, therefore, is both a symptom of imbalance and a tool for transformation. It’s a human way of adjusting to the environment, finding dignity, and seeking a better life.