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Urbanization and Spatial Patterns of Internal Migration in India

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Abstract

With an urbanization level of 31.16 % in 2011, India is the least urbanized country among the top 10 economies of the world. In addition, unlike other countries, the transition of workforce out of agriculture is incomplete. This coupled with jobless growth in recent years has contributed to an increase in certain migration streams. While rural–rural migration continues to be the largest in terms of magnitude, we also document an increase in two-way commuting across rural and urban areas. Further, there are a large number of short term migrants and an increase in return migration rate is also observed.

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  1. If the broad outlines of an urban future are already apparent, the country-specific details needed for adequate planning are not. Population projections at the national level have proved to be more accurate than forecasts of the size of rural and urban population separately. Montgomery (2008) points out that the projection of urban population made by the United Nations has been on the higher side.

  2. Over the period 1983–1984 and 2004–2005, the share of agriculture in value added as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP) decreased from 39 to 20 % in 2004–2005 while the share of agriculture in total employment declined from 68 to 58 %.

  3. Unless otherwise mentioned all Census data have been accessed from http://www.censusindia.gov.in/.

  4. For further discussion see http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Metadata/Metada.htm#2b.

  5. A question that naturally follows is: what is the projected level of urbanization, assuming that no changes in the rural–urban classification? Dyson and Visaria (2004) have projected that 35.6 % of India’s population will be living in urban areas by 2026 and 44.3 % will be living in these areas by 2051. Their estimates are lower than those made by the United Nations, which indicate that 37.2 % of India population will be living in urban areas by 2025 and 55.2 % by 2050 (United Nations 2008b). The Technical Group on Population Projections constituted by the National Commission on Population forecast that 38.2 % of India would be urban by 2026 (Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India 2006). The terms of reference given to the Group required it to “take into account factors like level and pattern of contraceptive use, proportion of married females, the impact of major diseases like AIDS, immigration, migration etc. while undertaking population projections”. The Group provided population projections using the Components Method and utilized data from Census of India 2001 and Sample Registration System. In order to project the urban population, the Group used the method used by United Nations to forecast urban and rural population.

  6. The Census of India defines a non-migrant as one who spends his or her entire lifetime and dies in the same village/town in which he or she was born. A migrant is an individual who moves from one village or town to another village or town provided his or her movement is not of purely temporary nature. For details on concepts related to migration see http://www.censusindia.gov.in/Metadata/Metada.htm#2b.

  7. While there are specific schemes aimed at improving the lives of slum dwellers, there are hardly any initiatives aimed at peri-urban areas. This is because it is not clear which agency of the government is responsible for the peri-urban dwellers. Even within urban areas the institutional arrangements—assignment of function and financial resources—need to be reworked. An eye opener is the institutional arrangements governing India’s capital Delhi where the governance is carved up among different agencies or authorities. Since the multiple authorities have competing jurisdictions it has led to an inefficient system and governance has been a casualty (see Chapter 4, Delhi Human Development Report, Government of NCT of Delhi 2006).

  8. The city development plans have been prepared as per the requirements under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). In 2011, the mission covered a total of 65 cities including the mega cities, cities with over million population and thirty cities with less than one million population.

  9. In The State of World Population Report, 2011, Amitabh Kundu, argues that, “…some of India’s major cities are experiencing ‘degenerative peripheralization’—where the people are driven out by the high cost of living and the scarcity of jobs that pay a decent wage to live in ad hoc settlements on the periphery of metropolitan areas. In those peripheral settlements, people have lost the advantages of both urban and rural life. Big cities are losing the poor because they can’t afford to live there. Earlier, people would pick up something like 1000 rupees [about $22] and come to Delhi and look for a job for a month. Now with 1000 rupees you can’t stay for a week. We are sanitizing our cities. Sanitization means making the environment clean, …clearing the slums, pushing out the low-income colonies. And in the process, cities’ miss out on any opportunity to transform the urban poor into drivers of growth and development and instead perceive illiterate, unskilled workers only as liabilities to health, hygiene and law and order” (pp. 78–79).

  10. Compared with men, women are less likely to be enumerated at their place of birth, this can be attributed to moves following marriage. Comparing the 49th round (1993–1994) and 64th round (2007–2008) survey data of NSSO reveals that among rural female migrants, the proportion reporting marriage as a reason for migration increased from 61.6 % to 91.2 %. Among migrant women in urban areas, the proportion reporting marriage as the reason increased from 31.7 to 60.8 % (Table 7).

  11. The NSSO treats a member of the sample household as a migrant “if he or she had stayed continuously for at least 6 months or more in a place (village/town) other than the village/town where he/she was enumerated. The village/town where the person had stayed continuously for at least 6 months or more prior to moving to the place of enumeration (village/town) was referred to as the “last usual place of residence” of that migrated person. Shifting of residence within village or/town was not considered as an event of migration” (NSSO 2001a, b, p. 14).

  12. One other important stream not related to employment that is becoming important is migration for education an issue addressed by Chandrasekhar and Sharma (2013).

  13. Ghani et al. (2012) find that there has been a shift in the location of formal manufacturing sector from urban to rural area, the informal sector has moved from rural to urban area. The share of manufacturing sector in urban employment reduced from 69 to 57 % between 1989 and 2005 while the share of unorganized sector has risen from 25 to 37 % in the same period. Chakravorty and Lall (2007) show that a churn in the ranking of districts in terms of industrial investment was due to decline of new investments in the metropolitan districts (i.e. cities that are districts). Further, the share of urban districts (i.e. districts with at least 50 % urban population) in new investments also declined.

  14. Ram points out that India should expect an increase in number of commuting workers: “Even though people on marginal or even middle class incomes have been pushed out of Mumbai city, they still want to work there. He said there are commuters coming into the city from numerous outlying areas, including Pune, 163 km to the southeast of Mumbai, where population growth has also been rapid. Pune is now connected to Mumbai by a six-lane motorway that cuts travel time for those with cars or money for intercity buses” (UNFPA 2011, p. 69).

  15. The proportion of rural farm households relying primarily on transfers from their migrant members is low (Davis et al. 2007). Decomposing the reduction in rural poverty suggests that over the period 1993–2002, only 19 % of the reduction in worldwide rural poverty can be attributed to migration related factors while 81 % of the reduction could be ascribed to improved rural livelihoods (World Bank 2007). The above mentioned studies suggest that migration is not the most important pathway to reducing rural poverty and rural anti-poverty programs have an important role to play.

  16. The MPCE classes reflect the corresponding population weighted 10 deciles. Rural MPCE (Rs) Classes: 1: 27–360, 2: 360–423, 3: 423–475, 4: 475–525, 5: 525–578, 6: 578–639, 7: 639–717, 8: 717–833, 9: 833–1044, 10:1044 or more. Urban MPCE (Rs) Classes: 1: 97–515, 2: 515–632, 3: 632–745, 4: 745–860,5: 860–1004, 6: 1004–1178, 7: 1178–1402, 8: 1402–1728, 9: 1728–2348, 10: 2348 or more.

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Acknowledgments

Chandrasekhar is extremely grateful to Deborah Balk, Mark Montgomery and two referees of this journal for detailed comments on an earlier draft. We thank Deborah Balk for the map depicting night time lights. This paper is written as part of “Strengthen and Harmonize Research and Action on Migration in the Indian Context” SHRAMIC, an initiative supported by Sir Dorabji Tata Trust and Allied Trusts (SDTT &AT).

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    S. Chandrasekhar & Ajay Sharma

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Correspondence to S. Chandrasekhar.

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Chandrasekhar, S., Sharma, A. Urbanization and Spatial Patterns of Internal Migration in India. Spat Demogr 3, 63–89 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40980-015-0006-0

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