Emigration from Uttar Pradesh to the Middle East

Abstract

The present chapter aims to investigate the process of male emigration from urban areas of Bijnor district of Uttar Pradesh—the most populous state of India. The state, being the most populous state of the country and one of the poor and underdeveloped states of India, is unable to provide employment to a very large proportion of its young and adult populations. Thus, in the absence of adequate employment opportunities, Uttar Pradesh has emerged as the largest supplier of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled labour within the country as well to overseas, especially to the Gulf countries. In the present chapter an attempt has been made to find the annual trends of emigrants, their engagement in economic activity in host country, destination and amount of money sent home, along with its frequency. In addition to these information, arrangement of money to bear the emigration costs, as well as the data on the total amount of money spent on the entire emigration process including the expenses incurred on fraudulent payment made (if any) to unscrupulous agent and/or middleman, has also been discussed. The study is based on both primary and secondary sources of data. Simple descriptive statistical methods have been used to analyse the data. The data revealed that Uttar Pradesh has been the largest supplier of labour, especially to the Gulf countries. Most of the emigrants were motivated by economic reasons or had poor economic conditions at home. However, after emigrating to the Gulf countries they were not only employed but also getting higher wages and were able to send money to their homes regularly. Further, the data revealed that since the urban areas of Bijnor district were predominantly inhabited by Muslims, Saudi Arabia has been the most preferred destination for majority of the emigrants.