Many families have residences both at their origin (native place) and at the
destination. They shift between the two places depending on work and seasons.
Migration does not necessarily involve movement of all members of the family,
and often the wife remains in the rural area.
Urban migrants use different job searching mechanisms depending upon their
skills and educational qualifications. Contacts and networks are crucial for
getting urban jobs. In fact, villagers pre-arrange their jobs from rural areas
and come to urban areas through their contacts or networks. They keep close ties
with their rural areas for a variety of reasons. Migrants also pass on the
urban opportunities to the rural areas so that potential migrants can engage in
rural-based job search. In most cases, migration is the survival strategy for
many families.
One-third of the world’s 200 million international migrants, less than 70
million people, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), have
moved from one developing country to another. International migration from India
is of two types:
People with technical skills and professional expertise have migrated to
countries such as USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and other developed
countries. IT professionals, doctors and management professionals are an example
of this type. Indians migrating to countries such as UK and Canada in 1950s and
1960s were unskilled whereas in the later years, mostly professionals went to
these countries. In recent times, Indian professionals also go to countries such
as Germany, Norway, Japan and Malaysia. In the 1950s, about 10,000 persons a
year went to developed countries and in 1990s, this has increased to more
than 60,000 a year.
The second type of international migration is unskilled and semi-skilled
workers migrating to oil exporting countries of the West Asia on temporary
contracts. Almost
