Labour migration increasing at accelerating pace: Eco Survey

The Economic Survey today stated that the inter-state migration of labour is significantly higher than previous estimates and the annual average flow was close to 9 million migrants between states during 2011-16.
"New estimates of labour migration in India have revealed that inter-state labour mobility is significantly higher than previous estimates," said the Economic Survey 2016-17 presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament today.
According to the document, the study based on the analyses of new data sources and methodologies also shows that the migration is accelerating and was particularly pronounced for females.
The data sources used are the 2011 Census and railway passenger traffic flows of the Ministry of Railways and new methodologies, including the Cohort-based Migration Metric (CMM).

It said the new CMM shows that inter-state labour mobility averaged 5-6.5 million people between 2001 and 2011, yielding an inter-state migrant population of about 60 million and an inter-district migration as high as 80 million.
The first-ever estimates of internal work-related migration using railway data for 2011-16 indicate an annual average flow of close to 9 million migrant people among the states, it said.

Both estimates are significantly greater than the annual average flow of about 4 million suggested by successive censuses and higher than previously estimated by any study, it noted.
"The migration for work and education is accelerating. In 2001-11, the rate of growth of labour migrants nearly doubled relative to the previous decade, rising to 4.5 per cent per annum," it said.

The acceleration of migration was particularly pronounced for females and increased at nearly twice the rate of males in the 2000s. There is also a doubling of the stock of inter-state outmigrants to nearly 12 million in the 20-29 year old cohort alone.
One possible hypothesis for this acceleration in migration is the rewards -- in the form of prospective income and employment opportunities -- have become greater than the costs and risks that migration entails.
Another finding is that while political borders impede
flow of people, language does not seem to be a demonstrable barrier.
For example, a gravity model indicates that political borders depress the movement, as reflected in the fact that migrant flows within states are four times than across states.

However, not sharing Hindi as a common language appears not to create friction to the movement of goods and people across states, it said further.
According to the Survey, the domestic remittance market, which is estimated to exceed Rs 1.5 lakh crore, can also be leveraged to enhance financial inclusion for migrant workers and their families in the source region. Such measures would vastly enhance the welfare gains of migration and encourage even greater integration of labour markets in India.
The pattern of flows of migrants found are broadly consistent with what is expected -- less affluent states see more out-migration while the most affluent are the largest recipients of such people.

Relatively poorer states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh have high net out-migration. Seven states take positive CMM values reflecting net in-migration: Goa, Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka.
The cost involved in migrant movement are about twice as much as they are for goods - another confirmation of the popular conception, it said.
It called on the government to ensure portability of food security benefits, provision of healthcare and a basic social security framework for migrants - potentially through an inter-state self-registration process.
While there currently exist multiple schemes that have to do with migrant welfare, these are implemented at the state level and hence require greater inter-state coordination, it added.