Changing perspective of urbanization and urban male out-migration from Uttar Pradesh (India)

Mashkoor Ahmad, Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS)

At present internal migration and urbanization are the two most debatable issues in most of the Asian countries, though the rates of change of these two processes vary from country to country. In India too, urbanization and migration are gaining ever increasing attention of both the researchers and the policymakers. However, in most of the Asian countries including India, either the issue of out-migration from rural areas or the problem of in-migration in big cities and its impact on the quality and growth of urbanization have been the major issues of discussion. Surprisingly the problem of out-migration, from urban areas especially from small and medium size towns of backward areas, has largely been ignored. In this paper, therefore, an attempt has been made to look into the level, growth and pattern of urbanization in Uttar Pradesh and also to explore the spatial pattern of urban male out-migration from the state. Efforts have also been made to investigate the reasons of urban male out-migration by religion, social group, migration streams, and regional pattern of out-migration from the state to various zones in India. Besides, engagement of out-migrants in economic activity, migrants sending remittances and the amount of remittances from internal and international out-migrants, trend and share of Uttar Pradesh in the total emigration from India and international remittances inflow to India have also been explored. Finally some suggestions have also been given for the sustainable development of the state. The study revealed that Uttar Pradesh has experienced the second highest net out-migration rate among the states in India and in terms of absolute number it has registered the largest number of out-migrants. The state has contributed to more than one-fourth of the inter-state out-migrants and emigrants separately. Most of the out-migrants moved to industrialised and urbanized states especially for economic reasons.