Return Migration of Rural Youth: A New Trend in Rural India

Abstract

Return migration is the ‘voluntary movement of migrants back to their place of origin’. It is the logical consequences of the successful achievement of all migration-related goals and targets. It is becoming a common phenomenon in rural India. Among South Indian states viz., Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala were selected for the study and 25 enterprises of each metropolitan cities of three states were examined, the results of the study indicates that in 2010 average 35 youths had joined for any kind of job in different enterprises of three metropolitan cities of south India, in same year only seven youths had returned to their respective village. But in 2017, only 88 youths had joined the different enterprises and 58 youths were returned to their respective village. This was an average picture of 25 enterprises of each metropolitan city since there are thousands of enterprises which provide job to the rural youths in the urban area so we can imagine the severity of this new trend. Return migration is caused not only by economic factor but many others like social, political, cultural, environmental, health and education factors played a very vital role in the process of return migration of the rural youth.