Impact of Migration on Kerala's Economy and Society

Abstract

This article reports results of the first migration study covering the entire State of Kerala. It encompasses both measurement as well as analysis of the various types and facets of migration. Migration has been the single most dynamic factor in an otherwise dreary development scenario in Kerala during the last quarter of the twentieth century. Kerala is approaching the end of the millennium with a little cheer in many people's homes as a result of migration which has contributed more to poverty alleviation than any other factor, including agrarian reforms, trade union activities and social welfare legislation. The study shows that nearly 1.5 million Keralites now live outside India. They send home more than Rs.4,000 million a year by way of remittances. Three‐quarters of a million former emigrants have come back. They live mostly on savings, work experience, and skills acquired while abroad. More than a million families depend on an internal migrant's earnings for subsistence, children's education and other economic requirements. Whereas the educationally backward Muslims from the Thrissur‐Malappuram region provide the backbone of emigration, it is the educationally forward Ezhawas, Nairs and Syrian Christians from the former Travancore‐Cochin State who form the core of internal migration. The article also analyses the determinants and consequences of internal and external migration. It offers suggestions for policy formulation directed at optimum utilization of remittances sent home by emigrants and the expertise brought back by the return migrants. Migration in Kerala began with demographic expansion, but it will not end up with demographic contraction. Kerala has still to develop into an internally self‐sustaining economy. The prevailing cultural milieu in which its people believe that anything can be achieved through agitation, and any rule can be circumvented with proper political connections, must change and be replaced by a liberalized open economy with strict and definite rules of the game.

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