Kerala Migration

       Migration is a movement of people from one country or state to another. The migration status of Kerala is increasing at the increasing rate. Migration in Kerala started to Gulf countries in 1970s. Because in 1970s, Gulf countries discovered oil and massive keralites moved. In early people also move to Indian states like Bombay, Chennai etc. The migrate people work hardly and they built their dreams in their own land and after a years of hard work,  they come and settle their own land

         According to NORKA, Keralites are working in 182 countries out of 195 countries in the world. Majority of Keralites working in United Arab Emirates(UAE). The rich countries like a Canada, Japan have less younger population. Such less younger population countries attract more immigrants. They offering instant employment, family visa, free education for children, personal freedom, a better standard of living, social security, respect for work, permanent residence and citizenship. The major reason behind the migration is income( remittance) difference between own country and designation countries. People moving for better career growth and higher earning. Most of the common people in Kerala live good part of  in foreign countries. They may miss  home country and their family.

          Students in Kerala coin for higher education to developing countries like Britain, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand,  Germany, etc. They also going to countries as Barbados, Kyrgyzstan, Slovenia and Slovakia. The reason behind the migration of younger is lack of jobs, lack of infrastructure. They are so facing limited state to problem in government institution, exploiting fees in non governmental institutions in our country. Students pursue highly quality education from foreign country and also they get many scholarship programmes. And students can do part time work with their study. These are the major reasons the students in Kerala will pursue their education in abroad.

            Vacant houses are most common in Southern Kerala. 1.2 million vacant households in Kerala. one in five families in Kerala have a migrant member. The vacant houses mostly belong to the migrants. Vacant house termed ghost house in the context of migration in Kerala. Their children settle abroad, the houses are vacant after they passed away. The number of  The number of old age homes also increased. The migrate people sent their parents in old age homes. The root of family is ruined here. The concept of nuclear family is also ruined. And it also ruined the traditions and culture of own land.These are darken shade of migration.

 Every five year Kerala government conduct a migration survey. The Kerala migration survey  (KMS) was first started in 1998 under the leadership of Professor K C Zachariah and professor is Irudaya Rajan. The primary purpose of this survey is collected data on immigrants, emigrant, return emigrant, out migrant, return out migrant and their remittance. The Kerala migration survey of 2023 conducted by the Gulati Institute of Finance And Taxation(GIFT) under the direction of Dr S Irudaya Rajan. Government is implement lot of programmes for NRI people.

    People who migrated expecting better standard of living. Lack of jobs, Poor salaries for educated people as per their educational qualification , poor higher education quality, corruption, in efficient government officials, poor physical infrastructure, frequent strikes and hartal are the reason for increasing migration.

Rinju Unnikrishnan. P, Assistant Professor of Economics, Al Shifa College of Arts and Science, Kizhattoor, Perinthalmanna.