The opportunities and obstacles of migration: UNFPA study flags key gaps

The study said that migrant workers are not only labour-market participants but important contributors to critical sectors of south India's economy

A recent United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)-led study of migration patterns to the southern states of Keralam, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu from eastern and northern India has flagged the opportunities and challenges associated with migration.

 

In the last decade and a half, these three states have emerged as major destinations for domestic migrants because of their relatively advanced demographic transition, faster economic development, industrialisation, urbanisation and higher wage levels, according to the study. 

 

It added that migrant workers are not only labour-market participants but important contributors to critical sectors of south India’s economy. The vulnerabilities they face arise less from mobility itself than from structural and institutional weaknesses in labour governance, social protection, public-service delivery and interstate coordination, it observed. “Addressing these challenges therefore requires moving beyond piecemeal welfare responses towards a governance framework that recognises migration as an enduring feature of India’s development trajectory,” it said.

 

Priority areas include strengthening portable social protection, expanding access to ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ and other entitlements, establishing migrant help desks, improving financial inclusion, ensuring timely wage payments, strengthening labour inspection and grievance mechanisms. providing multilingual information and helplines, and improving occupational safety and health enforcement. It said policy responses should also be differentiated by state, sector and gender. 

 

Studying shifts

 

• 19.7% of respondents engaged in “casual employment”; 13.6% were permanent & 66.7% temporary
• Additionally, 86.4% had no written employment contract, 57.6% were paid in cash, and 77.4% were recruited through non-contractor channels
• Reported mean monthly earnings were ₹17,640 & median monthly earnings were ₹16,000
• Women earned ₹3,313 less per month than men (after adjusting for other factors)
• Mean working day lasted 9.87 hours
• Hospitality sector involved longest working hours: 10.34 hours per day
• Only 11.8% reported financial inclusion 
• Exclusion was particularly high in Karnataka, where 26.8% of respondents said they were excluded
• In terms of social inclusion, 81.3% flagged communication barriers, 79.6% reported language and cultural difficulties, 73.3% reported welfare access problems, and 69.2% said they faced healthcare access problems
• Karnataka recorded the highest prevalence of vulnerability, such as welfare exclusion (93.9%), housing deprivation (92.8%) and healthcare barriers (90.4%)
• In Keralam, social exclusion was the most prominent concern (68.4%), while in Tamil Nadu health care barriers ranked highest (57.2%)