Table Of ContentIndia Migration Report 2020
India Migration Report 2020 examines how migration surveys operate to collect,
analyse and bring to life socio-economic issues in social science research.
With a focus on the strategies and the importance of information collected by
Kerala Migration Surveys since 1998, the volume:
• Explores the effect of male migration on women left behind; attitudes of male
migrants within households; the role of transnational migration and its effect on
attitudes towards women;
• Investigates consumption of remittances and their utilization; asset accumulation
and changing economic statuses of households; financial inclusion of migrants
and migration strategies during times of crises like the Kerala floods of 2018;
• Highlights the twenty-year experience of the Kerala Migration Surveys, how its
model has been adapted in various states and led to the proposed large-scale
India Migration Survey; and
• Explores issues of migration politics and governance, as well as the return
migration strategies of other countries to provide a roadmap for India.
The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of development studies,
economics, demography, sociology and social anthropology, and migration and
diaspora studies.
S. Irudaya Rajan is Professor at the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala, India. With more than three decades of research experience in Kerala, he has
coordinated eight major migration surveys (1998, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2014,
2016 and 2018) in Kerala (with Professor K.C. Zachariah), led the migration surveys
in Goa (2008), Punjab (2011) and Tamil Nadu (2015), and provided technical
support to the Gujarat Migration Survey (2010). He has published extensively in
national and international journals on demographic, social, economic, political and
psychological implications of international migration. Professor Rajan is currently
engaged in several projects on international migration with the New York University,
UAE Exchange Centre, India Centre for Migration of the Ministry of External
Affairs and World Bank. He worked closely with the erstwhile Ministry of Overseas
Indian Affairs, government of India; Department of Non-Resident Keralite Affairs
(NORKA), government of Kerala and Kerala State Planning Board. He is currently
co-chairing the working group on NORKA for the thirteenth five-year plan (2017–
2022) of Kerala State Planning Board, government of Kerala, and is initiating the
Kerala Migration Survey 2021, funded by the Department of NORKA, government
of Kerala. He is Editor of two Routledge series, India Migration Report (annual) since
2010 and South Asia Migration Report (biennial), and is the founder and Editor-in-
Chief of the journal Migration and Development. Currently, he is the Chair of the
KNOMAD (The Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development,
World Bank) working group on internal migration and urbanization. He is one of
the expert committee members to advise the government of Kerala on COVID-19.
India Migration Report
Editor: S. Irudaya Rajan
Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India
This annual series strives to bring together international networks of migra-
tion scholars and policy-makers to document and discuss research on vari-
ous facets of migration. It encourages interdisciplinary commentaries on
diverse aspects of the migration experience and continues to focus on the
economic, social, cultural, ethical, security, and policy ramifications of
international movements of people.
India Migration Report 2010
Governance and Labour Migration
India Migration Report 2011
Migration, Identity and Conflict
India Migration Report 2012
Global Financial Crisis, Migration and Remittances
India Migration Report 2013
Social Costs of Migration
India Migration Report 2014
Diaspora and Development
India Migration Report 2015
Gender and Migration
India Migration Report 2016
Gulf Migration
India Migration Report 2017
Forced Migration
India Migration Report 2018
Migrants in Europe
India Migration Report 2019
Diaspora in Europe
India Migration Report 2020
Kerala Model of Migration Surveys
India Migration Survey 2021 (forthcoming)
Migration and Health
India Migration Report 2020
Kerala Model of Migration Surveys
Edited by S. Irudaya Rajan
First published 2021
by Routledge
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ISBN: 978-0-367-62556-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-10974-7 (ebk)
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Contents
List of figures viii
List of tables x
List of contributors xv
Preface xviii
Acknowledgements xxv
1 Large-scale migration surveys: replication of the Kerala
model of migration surveys to India Migration Survey 2024 1
S. IRUDAYA RAJAN, K. C. ZACHARIAH AND ASHWIN KUMAR
2 Keeping up with Kerala’s Joneses 23
BALASUBRAMANYAM PATTATH
3 Remittances, health expenditure and demand for healthcare
services 55
C. VALATHEESWARAN AND M. IMRAN KHAN
4 Remittances and asset accumulation among the left-behind
households 72
POOJA BATRA
5 Impact of male migrants and their return, on women left
behind: the case of Kerala, India 97
JURANY RAMIREZ GALLEGO, S. IRUDAYA RAJAN AND
ARJUN S. BEDI
6 Socio-economic dynamics of Gulf migration: a panel
data analysis 120
SHIBINU S.
vi Contents
7 Why do migrants transfer money? Motivations of
remittance from emigrants 136
ARYA RACHEL THOMAS AND ARCHANA K. ROY
8 Reintegration and future plans of return migrants 147
AFSAL K. S. AND RESHMI R. S.
9 Emigration and its effect on the labour force participation
of women in the left-behind household 162
ROSHAN R. MENON AND R. B. BHAGAT
10 Transnational migration and gender attitudes:
an exploratory analysis 177
S. IRUDAYA RAJAN, GINU ZACHARIA OOMMEN, SYED USMAN
JAVAID, GEORGE JOSEPH, JENNIFER SOLOTAROFF AND LUIS
ALBERTO ANDRES
11 Labour migration from Kerala: decision to migrate
and choice of destination 204
ANU ABRAHAM
12 Social remittances of Keralans in neoliberal circulation 228
KELLEE S. TSAI
13 The alcohol paradox: revisiting the Kerala model
of development 253
AJIT DAYANANDAN, RAJESH MANY AND GEORGE JOSEPH
14 Financial cost of international migration from South India:
what does data spanning three decades tell us? 268
GANESH SESHAN
15 Exploitative or ethical? Understanding the labour
recruitment practices in the 21st century from Kerala 280
C. S. AKHIL AND S. IRUDAYA RAJAN
16 Remittances and overseas migrants’ economic shocks:
evidence from Kerala’s recipient households after the 2008
global crisis 293
EUGENIA CANESSA
Contents vii
17 Cultural production of narratives as counter-archives
in Kerala Gulf emigration studies 319
PRIYA MENON
18 Migration and asset accumulation in South India:
comparing gains to internal and international migration
from Kerala 326
GANESH SESHAN
19 Tracing the changing economic status of Kerala
households: the KMS experience 359
UDAYA S. MISHRA AND S. IRUDAYA RAJAN
20 The Janus-faced dilemma of Migration as Adaptation: the
impact of rapid onset floods on labour migration in Kerala,
India, 2018 372
JESSICA LI
21 Climate change, migration and development:
the aftermath of the 2018 floods in Kerala 385
S. IRUDAYA RAJAN, STEVE TAYLOR, ANEETA SHAJAN
AND LISA HARDISTY
22 Impact of migration on financial inclusion and local
financial systems in Kerala 407
K. JAFAR
23 International migration and global diplomacy 426
ALWYN DIDAR SINGH
24 Governance of emigration today 437
T. K. MANOJ KUMAR AND M. C. LUTHER
25 Empowerment of female return migrant initiatives
in Indonesia: lessons for India 459
MUNA YASTUTI MADRAH, WAHYU ARIF RAHARJO, UMMU
SYAFIQAH AZLAN, FIRMAN BUDIANTO, AROKKIARAJ HELLER
AND ANTONIUS MARIA INDRIANTO
Index 469
Figures
4.1 Utilization of foreign remittances by LBH based on
frequency of receiving 86
6.1 Change in the usage of cooking fuel, 2016 126
6.2 Change in the type of house, 2011 and 2016 127
7.1 Hypothetical model of change in motivation to remit 140
7.2 Purpose for sending remittance to the household 141
8.1 Countries last visited among return migrants in Malabar
and Kerala 151
9.1 Trends in labour force participation among women in
emigrant households and non-emigrant households
of Kerala 168
13.1 Revenue from alcohol in Kerala’s revenue, 1996–2013 254
14.1 Real migration cost, 1980–2013 271
14.2 Real migration cost by destination countries in the GCC 272
14.3 Real migration cost – selected components 273
14.4 Real migration cost by gender 274
14.5 Real migration cost by education attainment 275
14.6 Real migration cost by number of other HH members
working abroad 275
14.7 Real migration cost by rate of migration at the
sub-district level 276
15.1 Cost of migration from 1970 to 2015 285
15.2 Average cost of documentation in million INR from 1970
to 2015 286
15.3 Average real cost of transportation from 1970 to 2015 287
15.4 Cost of recruitment from 1970 to 2015 287
15.5 Breakdown of total cost of migration in 1970 288
15.6 Breakdown of total cost of migration in 2015 288
15.7 Comparison between the average cost of network
migration and recruitment agent-driven migration under
various heads in the migration cost 289
18.1 Overall assets index against landholdings in 1998 340
Figures ix
18.2 Change in overall assets index by migration status
(1998–2003) 340
18.3 Cumulative density function of change in overall assets
index by migration status (1998–2003) 341
18.4 Education distribution of Kerala’s migrants in 2014 350
18.5 Income distribution by migration status in 2014 351
19.1 Index shift across quintiles 366
19.2a Index shift across quintiles – districts 367
19.2b Index shift across quintiles – districts 367
19.3 Index shift across quintiles – migrant and non-migrant
households 368
21.1 Breakdown of the casualties caused due to floods 388
21.2 Distribution of the damage caused across sectors 391
21.3 Conceptual framework to study the impact of floods on
migration 393
21.4 Age group distribution of illness 401
24.1 Emigration from the top nine labour sending states 444
24.2 Migration trends from Indian states 445
24.3 Workers migrating to important destinations abroad 446
