ABSTRACT
In migration and mobility studies, the availability of scientifically reliable data remains a persistent challenge. The recent move towards harnessing mobile and big data has also been unable to resolve the data issues due to accessibility, privacy, as well as ethical and methodological intricacies involved with such data sets. In this paper, we explore a new set of data known as visitor location register (VLR) and roaming data, which is recorded and reported by mobile service providers. The reporting model of VLR data used and presented in this paper is not only free from privacy and ethical concerns but also methodologically sound and simple to compute as compared to any previous approaches. Drawing on VLR data, this paper finds direct evidence of unusually high interstate net reverse migration during the first and second COVID-19 lockdowns in India (44.13 and 26.3 million, respectively), and thereafter quick return migration back to cities during unlocks. The findings from this paper also provide insights into evolving migration directions, precarity, pockets of origin and destination and state policies in containing reverse migration during lockdowns in India. We anticipate that the data presented in the paper have the potential to fill a major data gap in migration and mobility studies in other countries too if VLR and roaming data are made available at the required spatial and temporal levels.
ABSTRACT
Emigrants from Kerala, India, were among the international migrants affected by the displacing consequences of COVID-19 - job losses, decreasing wages, inadequate social protection systems, xenophobia and overall uncertainty - which led to large-scale return migration to India. Returning home due to exogenous shocks calls into question the voluntary nature of return, the ability of returnees to reintegrate and the sustainability of re-embedding in the home country. The role of return migrants in the development of their societies of origin is also unclear. In this commentary, we explore the circumstances of return migration since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic by focusing on a case study of Kerala and provide insights on the future of emigration from this corridor along with policy suggestions. The role of return migrants in the development of their societies of origin requires further research and policy interventions.
ABSTRACT
The urban?rural divide in India has been the cause of labour flow to Indian cities, which have historically witnessed an insufficiency in planning. Moreover, widening social inequalities exacerbate the living conditions in Indian cities, pushing the migrant labourers from rural areas to the margins of urban spaces. Public policymakers have long turned a blind-eye to migrants, denying them essential social security. This study attempts to review how these factors have made urban space unwelcome to migrants from rural areas, edging them to a state of inability to sustain themselves, especially amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also an attempt to re-evaluate the status of urbanization. The government imposed a sudden lockdown in 2020 to mitigate the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, leading to a massive exodus of migrants from cities back to their homes. The study also seeks to account for the significance of economic planning and social security with regard to migrant labour.