The marine fisheries sector represents a transition from a subsistence economy to a highly industrialized one. The employment
potential of the secondary and tertiary sectors in marine fisheries has increased tremendously in the present scenario of globalization and
liberalization. The present paper documents the case of migrant labourers from Tamilnadu who have been forced to migrate from an
agrarian economy in to fisheries based economy in coastal Karnataka in order to support their livelihood, due to frequent droughts, crop
failure and reduced wages faced by them as agricultural labourers in their native state. The study conducted in Mangalore fisheries
harbour in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka documents the socio-economic profile of the migrants, the peak, medium and lean
seasons of fishing, the differential wage patterns among the men and women labourers, and the factors which discriminated the high and
low levels of aspiration among the migrants. The Discriminant function analysis revealed that, variables namely age, education, family
type and annual income had shown positive influence in differentiating the high from low levels of aspiration among migrant labourers.
The results of theWilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test showed that significant differences were found in between high and low levels of aspiration
with respect to variables such as education status of the respondents, occupational experience and the level of awareness of developmental
programmes
