Abstract
Although youth constitutes a large portion of migrants, the phenomenon of youth migration has been a topic largely understudied because of being dominated by marriage—marriage accounts for 91 per cent of female migrations from rural areas and 61 per cent female migrations from urban areas. Although migration has been extensively studied, in literature, there has not been sufficient focus on the role of regional inequalities in education and employment opportunities—that according to Udaya S. Mishra and Pinak Sarkar are the major reasons causing desperation among youths to move out—in triggering and sustaining youth migration, and the volume is an attempt to fill that gap.
The book contains altogether 10 essays attempting to highlight different linkages between disparities in development and youth migration. At present, the demographic trend in India is in favour of youths, and how much India will be able to benefit from this depends largely on the extent up to which it solves the problem of education that is closely related to the employability and employment. The book contains essays which deal with internal as well as international migration and discuss conditions not only at the origin but also at the destination. The regions of origin covered are north-eastern and Empowered Action Group (EAG) states especially Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The chapter by Nandan Kumar and R. B. Bhagat based on the NSSO 64th round focusing on Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar highlights similarities—risk diversification and regional inequality enforced by historical and cultural process that set the background for the migration from the region—as well as differences—in Uttar Pradesh, male outmigration increases with increasing monthly per capita expenditure whereas in Bihar outmigration first decreases with increasing monthly per capita expenditure up to a level and then it rises afterward.
The chapter by Rajnish Kumar, Mayumi Murayama and Fumiko Oshikawa argues that labour migration is not the cause but symptom of underdevelopment. Because there is a large pool of unskilled labour, so it cannot be termed as brain drain. Authors note that although better-off and poor both migrate but there is a difference in the jobs which they aspire and find at the destination as former go to good jobs and other to the informal urban labour market. The chapter meticulously studies the India-specific social and cultural factors, that is, caste, tradition and family which affect the decision of an individual to migrate. People still migrate to the East and North-East India because the well-established economic opportunity created by their forefather’s act as an important pull factor. In their survey, they find that the intensity of migration is high in case of the cultivating and land-owning castes whose members have either become more educated or have completely lost their traditional occupation—the examples are those hailing from Nonia and Teli castes. In the case of males, outmigration starts at the age of 14 reaches its peak in the 20–24 age group and afterward it decreases to increase again at the later ages. The chapter studies the impacts of various other factors such as the schooling system, tuition culture and power supply at the place of origin which operates as a push factor. Another chapter which focuses on rural areas is of K. K. Bagchi. He makes study of rural to rural migration of poor and underemployed people engaged as agricultural labour in rain-fed, distressed and seasonal agriculture region to areas with perennial and prosperous agriculture to be employed as agricultural labour or as non-agricultural labour because of themselves were not educated enough to be absorbed in urban labour market and wages being higher in prosperous areas. In his survey of two districts, namely Cooch Bihar and Bankura Bagchi, he finds landlessness or meagre land possession as a major factor which is not only making youths to migrate but also making children from 6 to 14 years drop out from school and migrate in search of work. The network effect dominates as the migrants who are already at destination arrange jobs before arrival, and as the people at destination needs migrants, they make arrangements for housing which cannot be said to be satisfactory but in many sense are better than that of origin. The problem with the chapter is that it makes some of the recommendations that do not seem to be appearing from the study undertaken like ‘strengthening of self-help groups’.
There are three chapters which focus on the destination. Nibedita Bayen and Ausmita Dey highlight health-related issues of migrants at the destination. In their survey of Kolkata, they find geographical factors, ghettoization, marginalization and neglect of the migrants responsible for making this cheapest workforce prone to mental, sexual and other diseases. Pinak Sarkar’s chapter that is based on the NSSO 64th round and census 2001 compares migration originating from north-east states and eight backward states to four destination states that are Delhi, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Karnataka. It makes a durational analysis to find out the certainty of migrants sustaining for longer durations at destination, in case of reason-specific migration, differential in sustainability of migrants at the place of destination between those migrating for education versus those migrating for employment and difference in the pattern of sustainability of migrants from North-East region against those originating from the backward states of what we called as ‘mainland’. Rikil Chyrmang and So E Mi Kyndiah blame failure of north-eastern states in developing infrastructure for the youth migration for higher education. They focus on the youth coming to the metropolitan cities to study and then eventually take up jobs.
The last two chapters focus on student migrating from India to abroad. Amba Pande finds demographic changes, the domestic WTO policies and technological evolution as the factors responsible for the increasing numbers of students moving out from India generating significant capital outflow. She remains positive about the recent initiatives especially the role played by the private institutions which are attracting the foreign students to Indian subcontinent. To develop India as an attractive educational location, Pandey suggests a regular review of education policy especially that of higher education. India can learn a lot from the experience of Singapore, as noted by Anusha Thallam, which has been a preferred destination for Indian students because of the easy and transparent application process for entering into the country, being safer, cheaper in comparison to other destinations and easy admission process.
As India is in the mid of the demographic dividend phase, youth will search for and need to be provided with proper educational and employment opportunities. With the increasing primary and secondary education, the aspirations will increase which initiate new waves of internal as well as international migration. In forming policies whether they are related to education, jobs or even urbanization, the issue of youth migration needs to be kept in consideration. The editors S. Irudaya Rajan and P. Sivakumar must be praised too for this beautiful collection of the essays that bring into the focus the phenomenon of youth migration which has largely been neglected.