ABSTRACT
Migration dates back to the dawn of civilisation and has experienced significant changes across time. Globally, migration and development are inextricably intertwined, with remittances serving as the foundation for wealth in the nations of origin. Migration patterns tend to vary as a result of global economic revolutions, internal economic reforms, and socio-political changes throughout the world. This chapter will also address the topic of student migration and how affluent nations are luring talented students by leveraging their home countries' financial advantages. This is the movement of students as high-skilled migration, where the host countries tactically offer incentives such as permanent or long-term residence/citizenship to attract these students. The chapter examines both short-and long-term advantages and costs of skilled migration, and while it covers topics that affect both sending and receiving nations, it focusses on the possible consequences of a big outflow of highly skilled migrants for the economies of the major sending areas. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Anna Triandafyllidou;individual chapters, the contributors.
ABSTRACT
India Migration Report 2022 is one of the first volumes to focus comprehensively on Indian health professionals migration. The essays in the volume discuss the reasons, challenges and opportunities that daunt and prompt health professionals to migrate within and outside India. This volume: Explores the history of migration of health professionals, especially nurses from India;Focuses in economic and social drivers of migration among health professionals;Examines shifting patterns in migration as well as emergence of new destinations for migrants;Studies the economic and social impact of COVID-19 among migrant health professionals;Highlights the influence of remittances on rural economies in India.Timely, data-driven and drawing on exhaustive fieldwork, the volume looks at Indian health professionals in North America, Middle East, Asia Pacific and South Asia. It will be of interest to scholars and researchers of development studies, public health, public policy, economics, demography, sociology and social anthropology, and migration and diaspora studies. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, S. Irudaya Rajan;individual chapters, the contributors.
ABSTRACT
The outbreak of deadly disease coronavirus has spread contagiously throughout the world and disrupted the life and livelihood of billions of people. To control the transmission of the virus, most of the countries have imposed travel restrictions and called for a nationwide lockdown. The most vulnerable section of the society that has been hit hard by the pandemic has been the migrant (internal and international) and their families. Many scholars have referred to the situation among the internal migrants as marginalized and rendering them being stateless, further exposed to a world of infections, insecurity and humiliations. Parallelly, the impact of COVID-19 on return emigrants remains unexplored. In lieu, our study using data from the return emigrant COVID-19 survey from Kerala aims to investigate the socio-economic consequences of COVID-19 pandemic on the return emigrants and their left-behind households (LBHs). © 2022 selection and editorial matter, S. Irudaya Rajan;individual chapters, the contributors.
ABSTRACT
India Migration Report 2021 presents a detailed study on the health of migrants. It highlights major healthcare challenges faced by migrant labourers, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced authorities, policymakers and many other stakeholders to turn their attention to healthcare delivery unlike ever before. Bringing to the fore the health status of the migrant population both before the pandemic and during the pandemic, the essays in this volume discuss • the ease of access of migrant labourers to primary healthcare services;• the safety challenges faced by migrant workers at their workplaces, their exposure to various physical and psychological health vulnerabilities, and prevalence of potentially malignant health disorders and mental health issues among migrant labourers;• gendered access to healthcare, gender-based violence at workplaces and the gender-related perceptions on topics such as employment, decision-making and general attitude;• the role of decentralization and local self-government institutions in enabling health systems to address health problems of migrants, government policies and programs aimed at providing welfare for return emigrants from the Gulf;• the vulnerabilities migrant workers have encountered across the Indian states during the pandemic, with regards to food insecurity and psychological distress, and the type of support they received from various stakeholders. The volume will be of interest to scholars and researchers of development studies, economics, demography, sociology and social anthropology, and migration and diaspora studies. © 2022 selection and editorial matter, S. Irudaya Rajan;individual chapters, the contributors.
ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on internal migrants in India. According to the 2011 Census, there are over 450 million internal migrants, of which a massive 54 million are inter-state migrants. A large number of these migrants consist of labourers who comprise a huge percentage of the informal sector workforce, both in the rural and urban areas of India, and are vital to the country’s economy. These workers are also some of the most vulnerable, with inadequacies in terms of working conditions and coverage of social safety nets, and are also largely absent from India’s policy discourses. This chapter highlights the size and extent of internal migration as well as its distribution across different states in India. It shows how the current crisis and lockdowns have affected their lives and livelihoods. It particularly looks at the responses of central and various state governments – at destinations and origins – to ensure migrants’ wellbeing. It also analyses the socioeconomic impact of the migrant exodus from major destinations and looks at solutions to enable and ensure that migration patterns in the future are sustainable, and more importantly, ensure migrants’ rights and dignity. © 2022, The Author(s).
ABSTRACT
The Covid-19 pandemic has directly affected the millions of migrant workers in Gulf countries, mostly employed as temporary labour in construction and allied sectors. The Gulf region historically has been the most favoured destination for such jobs. However, the pandemic crisis has halted construction projects in these countries as the drastic fall in oil prices has affected Gulf oil and non-oil economies severely. This has had an adverse effect on Indian migrant workers as they face the threat of unemployment, leading to their voluntary or forced return to India. For example, at the end of 2020, half a million Kerala emigrants, most of them in the Gulf, had lost their jobs abroad due to the pandemic, making their return inevitable given their temporary status in these countries. This chapter examines how India is prepared to handle the changing trends in Indo-Gulf migration corridor and the subsequent return emigration from the Gulf. The chapter highlights major sending-state perspectives, such as that of Kerala and others, and their responses towards Gulf returnees. Moreover, it provides insights by revisiting the existing economic and social security measures for returning migrants and their families within the framework of state welfare schemes, thereby examining rehabilitation and re-integration mechanisms for return migrants at the central and state levels in India. © 2022, The Author(s).