This research is first of its kind for Kerala, being the first migration
study that covers the entire state and encompasses both measurement as
well as analysis of the various types and facets of migration. Migration
has been the single-most dynamic factor in the otherwise dreary
development scenario of Kerala in the last quarter of the twentieth century.
Kerala is approaching the end of the millennium with a little cheer in
many people's homes, a major contributing factor for which has been
migration. Migration has contributed more to poverty alleviation in Kerala
than any other factor, including agrarian reforms, trade union activities
and social welfare legislation.
The study shows that nearly 1.5 million Keralites now live outside
India. They send home more than Rs.4,000 million a year by way of
remittances. Three-quarters of a million former emigrants have come
back. They live mostly on savings, work experience, and skills brought
with them from abroad. More than a million families depend on internal
migrants'earnings for subsistence, children's education and other
economic requirements. Whereas the educationally backward Muslims
from the Thrissur-Malappuram region provide the backbone of
emigration, it is the educationally forward Ezhawas, Nairs and Syrian
Christians from the former Travancore-Cochin State who form the core
of internal migration. The paper also analyses the determinants and
consequences of internal and external migration. It offers suggestions
for policy formulation for the optimum utilization of remittances sent
home by the emigrants and the expertise brought back by the return
migrants.
Migration in Kerala began with demographic expansion, but it
won't end with demographic contraction. Kerala has still time to develop
itself into an internally self-sustaining economy. The prevailing cultural
milieu of Kerala in which its people believe that anything can be achieved
through agitation and any rule can be circumvented with proper political
connections, must change and be replaced by a liberalised open economy
with strict and definite rules of the game.
JEL Classification: J21, J2
