Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
Rural-urban migration is exceptionally low in India. Changes in the rural and urban population between decennial censuses over the period 1961-2001 indicate that the migration rate for working age adult males (those aged 25-49) ranged from 4 per cent to 5.4 per cent. An independent measure of migration constructed from the nationally representative India Human Development Survey conducted in 2005 suggests a male rural-urban migration rate of 6.8 per cent; while in the male sub sample of the Indian Demographic and Health Survey (DHS), the migration rate is 5.3 per cent. To put these statistics in perspective, the corresponding migration rate from the 1997 Brazil DHS, which also includes a male sample, is over twice as large at 13.9 per cent. India’s unusually low rural-urban migration is also reflected in its rates of urbanisation.
