Mains Practice Questions

Approach

• Enumerate the reasons of migration
• Discuss various challenges that migrant population faces

Introduction

• Migration is the movement of people from one place to another. Migration happens for a range of reasons. These can be economic, social, political or environmental. Push and pull factors drive migration.
• It is an instrument of cultural diffusion and social integration which yields more meaningful redistribution of population.

Body

Reasons for migration:

• Urbanization: The pull factors of better job facilities, good salary, and more income, medical and educational facilities are attracting the rural people to move to the cities.
• Marriage: Every girl has to migrate to her in-law’s place of residence. Thus, the entire female population of India has to migrate over short or long distance. About 49.35 the percent people shifted their residence after marriage in 2011.
• Education: Due to lack of educational facilities in rural areas, people migrate to the urban areas for higher education. In 2011 census, about 1.77 percent people migrated for education.
• Lack of Security: Political disturbances and interethnic conflicts drive people away from their homes. Large number of people has migrated out of Jammu and Kashmir and Assam during the last decade due to disturbed conditions there.
• Environmental causes of migration include natural disasters such as an earthquake

 Various challenges that migrant population faces:

• Issues faced in education: Migrants, especially seasonal migrants often take their children while they migrate for work, which negatively impact their schoolings. This is one of the reasons for high drop out in schools in many states.
• Health issues among migrant workers: The health of migrant is mostly affected by the host factors, such as the health environment in the place of origin, transit and destination, the conditions of the journey, access to drinking water and basic amenities, food and nutritional intake. Female workers are the most vulnerable.
• Exclusion faced in the society: Migrants are mostly visible in Unorganized sector or informal economy, often working as construction workers, agricultural laborers, hawkers and vendors, domestic servants, rickshaw pullers etc. Devoid of social security and legal protection, they work in the poor conditions and face real discriminations.
• Difficult living conditions like slums, lack of safe water, absence of sanitation, overcrowding with the attendant increase in crime, insecurity for women, sexual abuse and exposure to frequent epidemics and AIDs are the immediate outcome of this population shift.

Conclusion

• There is a need to understand the skill of migrant workers and increase the level of con?dence through capacity building programs. This will increase their productivity, social security and will directly boost our GDP and increase their standard of living.
• A strong national strategy that ensures better access to entitlements and basic working conditions will be essential in building a sustainable and equitable path way to the development of the nation and progress of our people