One important facet of study on population is the study of migration arising out of various social, economic or political reasons. For a large country like India, the study of movement of population in different parts of the country helps in understanding the dynamics of the society better. At this junction in the economic development, in the country, especially when many states are undergoing faster economic development, particularly in areas, such as, manufacturing, information technology or service sectors, data migration profile of population has become more important.
    When a person is enumerated in census at a different place than his / her place of birth, she / he is considered a migrant. This may be due to marriage, which is the most common reason for migration among females-or for work, what is the case as generally among males, etc. It also happens that many return to their place of birth after staying out. To capture such movements of population census collect information on migration by last helps to understand the current migration scenario better. In India, as per census 2001, about 307 million person have been reported as migration by place of birth. Out of them about 259 million (84.2%), migrated from on e part of the state to another, i.e., from one village or town to another village or town. 42 million (2%) from out side the country. The data on migration by last residence in India as per Census 2001 shows that the total number of migrants has been 314 million. Out of these migrants by last residence, 268 million (85%) has been intra-state migrants, those who migrated from one are of the state to another. 41 million (13%) were interstate migrants and 5.1 million (1.6%) migrated from out side of the country.

 

TABLE 10: NUMBER OF MIGRANTS BY PLACE OF BIRTH – INDIA 2001

Category
Migrations by Place of birth
Percentage
A. Total Population
1,028,610,328
B. Total Migrations
307,149,736
29.9
B.1 Migrants within the state of enumeration
258,641,103
84.2
B.11 Migrants from within the districts
181,799,637
70.3
B.12 Migrants from other districts of the state
76,841,466
29.7
B.2 Migrants from other states in India
42,341,703
13.8
B.3 Migrants from other countries
6,166,930
2.0
Source : Table D1 India, Census of India 2001.

   

 TABLE 11: NUMBER OF MIGRANTS BY PLACE OF LAST RESIDENCE – INDIA 2001

  Category
Migrations by Place of birth
Percentage
A. Total Population
1,028,610,328
B. Total Migrations
307,149,736
29.9
B.1 Migrants within the state of enumeration
258,641,103
84.2
B.11 Migrants from within the districts
181,799,637
70.3
B.12 Migrants from other districts of the state
76,841,466
29.7
B.2 Migrants from other states in India
42,341,703
13.8
B.3 Migrants from other countries
6,166,930
2.0
        
     Opportunities in urban areas for employment, education, etc have been          a pull factor attracting migrants from rural to urban areas and from          smaller towns and cities to larger urban areas. There is also migration          in the opposite direction from urban to rural areas due to various reasons.          The migration during the last decade, i.e., migrants with duration of          residence of 0-9 years at the place of enumeration, by various migration          streams are summarized in the following table:         
 
TABLE 12: NUMBER OF INTRA-STATE AND INTER-STATE MIGRANTS IN THE COUNTRY (DURATION OF RESIDENCE 0-9 YEARS) BY RURAL URBAN STATUS – INDIA 2001BY RURAL URBAN STATUS – INDIA 2001                                    
Rural Urban status of place of last residence Rural unban status of place of enumeration
Total
Rural
Urban
Total
97,560,320
61,428,374
36,131,946
Rural
73,949,607
53,354,376
20,595,231
Urban
20,655,277
6,266,503
14,388,774
Unclassified
2,955,436
1,807,495
1,147,941
Source : Table D-2, Census of India 2001
       Out of about 98 million, total intra-state and inter-state migrants in the country during last decade, 61 million have moved to rural areas and 36 million to urban areas. Migration stream out of rural areas(73 million) to another rural areas was quite high (53million) in comparison to from rural to urban areas (20 million). About 6 million migrants went to rural areas from urban areas.     On the basis of net migrants by last residence during the past decade, i.e., the difference between in – migration and out – migration, in each state, Maharastra stands at the top of the list with 2.3 million net migrants, followed by Delhi (1.7 million), Gujrat (0.68 million) and Haryana (0.67 million) as per census. Uttar Pradesh (-2.6 million) and Bihar (-1.7 million) were the two states with largest number of net migrants migrating out of the state.    There are various reasons for migration as per information collected in Census 2001 for migration by last residence. Most of the female migrants have cited ‘Marriage’ as the reason for migration, especially when the migration is within the state. For males, the major reasons for migration are ‘work/employment’ and ‘education’.

 

TABLE 13: REASONS FOR MIGRATION OF MIGRANTS BY LAST RESIDENCE WITH DURATION (0-9 YEARS) INDIA 2001

Reason for migrations
Number of Migrants
Percentage to Migrants
 
Persons
Males
Females
Persons
Males
Females
Total migrants
98,301,342
32,896,986
65,404,356
100.0
100.0
100.0
Reason for migration : Work / Employment
14,446,224
12,373,333
2,072,891
14.7
37.6
3.2
Business
1,136,372
950,245
186,127
1.2
2.9
0.3
Education
2,915,189
2,038,675
876,514
3.0
6.2
1.3
Marrige
43,100,911
679,852
42,421,059
43.8
2.1
64.9
Moved after birth
6,577,380
3,428,673
3,148,707
6.7
10.4
4.8
Moved with households
20,608,105
8,262,143
12,345,962
21.0
25.1
18.9
Other
9,517,161
5,164,065
4,353,096
9.7
15.7
6.7
Source: Table D3, Census of India 2001

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