Development and internal outmigration in India in post-economic reform era

Abstract

Globalisation and subsequent restructuring of the Indian economy after economic reforms have created conducive environment for more internal migration across sub-regions. This paper attempts to locate several aspects of internal outmigration within the country of India as a response to development strategies undertaken by the government at state level. Using a balanced panel regression method, the paper identifies that all the measurements of outmigration behaviour varied similarly across the states in the milieu of development policies and in the face of widespread variation in outmigration behaviours among the various agents of migration at state level. However, development aspects at state level inflicted different types of moves for different sector-wise, gender-wise, and stream-wise outmigration behaviours. Indian government should, therefore, cast serious glance on regional policy making across and within Indian states while planning the development aspect at state level keeping in mind the predictable outmigration strategies.