Migration: Types, Causes and Consequences

Why this chapter matters for UPSC: Migration links population geography to the economy, society and foreign policy. Mains has asked about changing trends in labour migration within and outside India, why big cities attract migrants, the migration of young women to cities, and the benefits of the Indian diaspora; GS2 and GS3 add remittances, the Gulf, and the welfare of migrant workers. This chapter was dropped from NCERT's rationalised edition: the 2026-27 reprint of India: People and Economy has nine chapters and none on migration. BharatNotes keeps it because the topic has not left the syllabus. World migration (the concept, types and push-pull factors in general) is covered in NCERT's Fundamentals of Human Geography, on this site's population page.

Contemporary hook: The Ministry of External Affairs counted 3.73 crore overseas Indians as of January 2026 (1.95 crore Persons of Indian Origin and 1.78 crore Non-Resident Indians), the largest communities in the USA (60.8 lakh), the UAE (43.4 lakh) and Canada (32.5 lakh). Their remittances make India the world's largest recipient: the RBI's sixth remittances survey found inflows of US$ 118.7 billion in 2023-24, more than double the US$ 55.6 billion of 2010-11, with the USA now the largest source (27.7%) ahead of the Gulf.

🧠 First Principles — Read This First

Migration redistributes people towards opportunity. NCERT calls migration "a response to the uneven distribution of opportunities over space": people move from places of low opportunity and low safety to places of higher opportunity and better safety. NCERT's opening story shows the pattern across three generations: Ram Babu, the son of illiterate farmers in Bhojpur, Bihar, studies in Ara and Sindri and works for 31 years at the Bhilai Steel Plant; one of his children works in Delhi, one in the USA, and one settles in Surat after marriage. Village to town, small town to big city, one State to another and one country to another: these are the streams of the chapter. India itself, NCERT notes, was formed by waves of people arriving from Central, West and Southeast Asia, as the poet Firaq Gorakhpuri wrote.

Why someone moves depends on who they are. NCERT's sharpest finding is that men and women migrate for different reasons: work and employment for men, marriage for women. That single fact explains most of the streams (women dominate short-distance rural-to-rural moves; men dominate long-distance rural-to-urban moves for work) and many of the consequences (the age and sex imbalance in sending and receiving areas, women left behind in villages, remittances flowing back). Keep it in mind through every section that follows.

PART 1 — Quick Reference

Migration in the Census (NCERT)

Four Streams of Internal Migration

Immigrants to India, Census 2011 (NCERT Table 2.1)

Reasons for Migration by Sex (NCERT, Census 2011)

Source: NCERT Class XII, India: People and Economy (2021-22), ch. 2 and Fig. 2.2, from Census of India 2011. NCERT's pie chart rounds the women's marriage share to 66%.

PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative

The Indian Diaspora: Three Waves

NCERT describes the movement of Indians abroad in three waves.

1. Indentured labour in the colonial period. Millions of indentured labourers were sent to work on plantations: by the British from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to Mauritius, the Caribbean (Trinidad, Tobago and Guyana), Fiji and South Africa; by the French and Dutch to Reunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Surinam; and by the Portuguese from Goa, Daman and Diu to Angola and Mozambique. These time-bound contracts came under the Girmit Act (Indian Emigration Act), and NCERT says the labourers' living conditions "were not better than the slaves".
2. Professionals, artisans, traders and workers to nearby regions. In recent times migrants went to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei and African countries, a trend that continues. The oil boom in West Asia in the 1970s drew a steady outflow of semi-skilled and skilled labour, and there was some outflow of entrepreneurs, storeowners, professionals and businessmen to Western countries.
3. Highly skilled professionals to the West. Doctors and engineers from the 1960s, and software engineers, management consultants, financial experts and media persons from the 1980s, went to the USA, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Germany. After liberalisation in the 1990s, education- and knowledge-based emigration made the Indian diaspora "one of the most powerful diasporas in the world".

How the Census Records Migration

Migration has been recorded since the first Census in 1881, at first only by place of birth. The 1961 Census added whether the place of birth was a village or town and the duration of residence for those born elsewhere; 1971 added the place of last residence and the duration of stay at the place of enumeration; 1981 added the reasons for migration, modified in later censuses. The Census asks whether a person was born in the village or town of enumeration (and if not, where), and whether the person came from elsewhere (and if so, from where), with the reason and the duration.

Migration is then counted in two ways. A life-time migrant is one whose place of birth differs from the place of enumeration. A migrant by place of last residence is one whose last place of residence differs from it. A person born in Patna who lived in Lucknow and is now enumerated in Delhi is a life-time migrant from Patna and a last-residence migrant from Lucknow. By the second definition, Census 2011 counted 455.8 million migrants, about 37% of the population. (NCERT prints 455.0 million in a later paragraph; 455.8 million is its figure for the total.)

Streams of Migration

Internal migration has four streams: rural to rural, rural to urban, urban to urban, and urban to rural. Of the migrants by last residence in 2011, 141.9 million had moved in the last ten years, and 118.7 million of these were intra-state, a stream dominated by women and by marriage. NCERT's Fig. 2.1 shows women predominating in the short-distance rural-to-rural streams within and between States, and men predominating in the rural-to-urban stream between States, for economic reasons. NCERT's two questions on the figure have the chapter's answers built in: rural-to-rural female migration is high because of marriage; inter-state rural-to-urban male migration is high because of work.

Immigration from Neighbouring Countries

Census 2011 recorded 53.6 lakh people who had migrated to India from other countries, 88.9% of them from neighbouring countries: Bangladesh 51.2%, Pakistan 17.1%, Nepal 15.1%, then Sri Lanka, Myanmar, China, Bhutan and Afghanistan. (NCERT's text says "Bangladesh followed by Nepal and Pakistan"; its own Table 2.1 puts Pakistan second.) Entry and stay of foreigners are now governed by the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, in force from 1 September 2025, which repealed the older Foreigners Act and Passport (Entry into India) Act.

Spatial Variation in Migration

Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat and Haryana attract migrants from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and other States. Maharashtra had the most in-migrants, followed by Delhi, Gujarat and Haryana; Uttar Pradesh had the largest number of net out-migrants. The pattern follows the map of opportunity: industrial and service economies receive, agricultural and less developed States send.

Causes of Migration: Push and Pull

NCERT groups the reasons into push factors, which cause people to leave, and pull factors, which attract them. In India people move from rural to urban areas mainly because of poverty, high population pressure on land and the lack of health care, education and other infrastructure; floods, droughts, cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, wars and local conflicts give an extra push. The most important pull for most rural migrants is better opportunities, regular work and higher wages; better education, health facilities and entertainment also pull. The gendered reasons above decide which of these apply to whom.

Consequences of Migration

Migration creates benefits and problems for both the source and the destination, in economic, social, cultural, political and demographic terms.

Economic. Remittances are the major benefit for the source region and a major source of foreign exchange. NCERT's figure is US$ 11 billion in 2002, with Punjab, Kerala and Tamil Nadu receiving significant amounts. Internal migrants send far less, but their remittances are the "life blood" of thousands of poor villages in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, spent on food, debts, treatment, marriages, education, farm inputs and houses. Migrant labour from eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha to rural Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh made the Green Revolution possible there. On the negative side, unregulated migration to metropolitan cities caused overcrowding and slums in industrial States such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi.

Demographic. Migration redistributes population and drives the growth of cities. Out-migration from rural areas is age- and skill-selective and damages the rural demographic structure: high out-migration from Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and eastern Maharashtra has produced serious imbalances in age and sex composition, and receiving States see the mirror image (more working-age men).

Social. Migrants are agents of social change, carrying ideas on new technology, family planning and girls' education from towns to villages. Mixing of cultures can produce a composite culture and widen horizons, but it can also produce anonymity, a social vacuum and dejection that may draw people into crime and drug abuse.

Environmental. Overcrowding from rural-urban migration strains urban infrastructure and leads to unplanned growth, slums and shanty colonies, along with depletion of groundwater, air pollution, and the problems of sewage disposal and solid waste.

Others. Male-selective out-migration leaves women in villages with extra physical and mental burdens; migration of women for education or work raises their autonomy. If remittances are the source region's main gain, the loss of highly skilled people is its most serious cost: the global market for advanced skills draws trained professionals from poor regions and reinforces their underdevelopment.

Migrant Workers and the 2020 Lockdown

The COVID-19 lockdown of March 2020 tested every consequence NCERT lists. The Ministry of Labour and Employment, on the basis of State governments' information, said that around one crore migrant workers went back to their source States during COVID-19 (PIB, 16 September 2020). The episode exposed how little the welfare system followed migrants, and several measures since address that:

• One Nation One Ration Card: inter-State portability of ration cards began on 9 August 2019 in two clusters (Andhra Pradesh-Telangana and Gujarat-Maharashtra) and covered all 36 States and UTs when Assam joined in June 2022.
• Free foodgrains: the Cabinet decided on 29 November 2023 to provide free foodgrains to about 81.35 crore beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana for five years from 1 January 2024.
• e-Shram: a national database of unorganised workers, launched on 26 August 2021.
• Labour Codes: the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 is subsumed in the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020; the four Labour Codes came into effect on 21 November 2025.

PART 3 — UPSC Integration

Frames that score. For labour migration within and outside India, use NCERT's streams and three diaspora waves, then update with MEA and RBI: the shift from Gulf to Western sources of remittances is the change "in the last four decades" an examiner wants. For the consequences, use NCERT's five heads with an Indian example each. For diaspora questions, the PIO/NRI split by country shows which wave a community belongs to.

Exam Strategy

For Prelims: the Census history of migration questions (1881, 1961, 1971, 1981); the two definitions of a migrant; 455.8 million (37%) in 2011; Bangladesh as the largest source of immigrants; Maharashtra as the largest receiving State and Uttar Pradesh as the largest net sender; work (men) and marriage (women) as the main reasons; the girmit system and its destinations.

For Mains: set out push and pull factors, then the gender difference, then the consequences under NCERT's five heads, with current RBI and MEA figures dated.

Avoid: confusing life-time and last-residence migrants; quoting NCERT's 2002 remittance figure as current; and treating the Gulf as still the largest source of remittances (the RBI's 2023-24 survey puts the USA first).

Practice Questions

Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers). Questions 1 to 3 are NCERT's own exercise MCQs.

Prelims:

1. Which one of the following is the main reason for male migration in India?
   (a) Education
   (b) Business
   (c) Work and employment
   (d) Marriage

2. Which one of the following States receives the maximum number of in-migrants?
   (a) Uttar Pradesh
   (b) Delhi
   (c) Maharashtra
   (d) Bihar

3. Which one of the following is the main reason for female migration in India?
   (a) Education
   (b) Business
   (c) Work and employment
   (d) Marriage

4. A person born in village A, who lived in town B and is now enumerated in city C, is counted in the Census as:
   (a) a life-time migrant from B and a last-residence migrant from A
   (b) a life-time migrant from A and a last-residence migrant from B
   (c) a migrant from A under both definitions
   (d) a migrant from B under both definitions

5. According to the RBI's survey of remittances for 2023-24, which one of the following was the largest source of India's inward remittances?
   (a) United Arab Emirates
   (b) United States of America
   (c) Saudi Arabia
   (d) United Kingdom

6. Consider the following countries: 1. Mauritius 2. Fiji 3. Guyana 4. Malaysia. To how many of these did the British send indentured labourers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, according to NCERT?
   (a) Only one
   (b) Only two
   (c) Only three
   (d) All four

Answer notes: Q2, NCERT's question says "immigrants" but means migrants from other States, as its text shows; Q6, NCERT lists Mauritius, the Caribbean (Trinidad, Tobago and Guyana), Fiji and South Africa; Malaysia belongs to its second wave.

Mains:

1. Discuss the changes in the trends of labour migration within and outside India over the last few decades. (250 words)
2. What are the socio-demographic consequences of migration for the places migrants leave and the places they reach? (150 words)
3. "If remittances are the major benefit of migration, the loss of skilled people is its most serious cost." Examine with reference to India. (150 words)

📦 Revision Capsule

Sources

• NCERT, India: People and Economy (Class XII), ch. 2 "Migration: Types, Causes and Consequences", Table 2.1 and Figs. 2.1-2.2 (2021-22 print; not in the 2026-27 reprint): 2021 book archive, Wayback copy.
• Ministry of External Affairs, "Population of Overseas Indians" (as of January 2026): mea.gov.in.
• RBI Bulletin, "Changing Dynamics of India's Remittances: Insights from the Sixth Round of India's Remittances Survey", 19 March 2025: rbi.org.in; RBI, Developments in India's Balance of Payments during Q4 2025-26 (June 2026): rbi.org.in.
• UN DESA Population Division, International Migrant Stock 2024: key facts PDF.
• PIB (Ministry of Labour and Employment), migrant workers during COVID-19, 16 September 2020: pib.gov.in; e-Shram: pib.gov.in; Labour Codes in force, 21 November 2025: pib.gov.in.
• PIB (Department of Food and Public Distribution), ONORC: pilot, 9 August 2019; all 36 States/UTs, June 2022; Cabinet decision on free foodgrains, 29 November 2023: pib.gov.in.