Discuss the trends in Internal Migration in the country.

Internal migration trends based on the 2011 census is outlined below:

• About 45 million Indians migrated outside their district of birth for work opportunities, be it employment or business. It comes down to 10% of all domestic migrants, down from 10.4% in 2001
• Of the 640 districts in 2011, only 5 accounted for 15% of all migrants who moved in for employment opportunities.

Where there was the inflow of migrants?

The five districts Thane (1.6 million), Bangalore (1.5 million), Mumbai Suburban (1.3 million), Pune (1.2 million) and Surat (1 million) accounted for 15% of all migrants who moved in for employment opportunities. This was in absolute terms.

In relative terms i.e. where the share of work-related migration is larger, the list was led by Daman and includes two districts from Nagaland and one from Arunachal Pradesh.

Trends in Inflows and Outflows

About 57 districts across India accounted for more than 20% of migrants moving for work reasons. These are the districts that hold the promise of employment opportunities.

On the other hand for about 196 districts the inflow of migrants was below 5%. It included 36 of Bihar’s 38 districts and 44 of Uttar Pradesh’s 71.

In terms of outflows, Uttar Pradesh (3.8 million) and Bihar (2.4 million) accounted for 47% of all migrants moving for work reasons.

About 25% of migrants changed states for work whereas only 8% of intra-state migrations were for work and employment.

Urban-Rural Migration

About three-fourth of work migration was to urban areas. Of 34 million who moved to urban places, 20 million came from rural areas and 14 million from urban.

Gender Composition in Migration

Of the 450 million people who migrated about 68% (306 million) are women. But most of them are not moving for work reasons.

Only 2% (7.2 million) of migrant women moved for work, as opposed to 26% of men.

The top five districts where women migrated for work are Bangalore, Thane, Pune, Rangareddy (Telangana) and Mumbai Suburban.

As with men, women from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar lead in terms of share of women migrants moving for work, (19% and 11%, respectively).