Abstract
The study examines labour force participation, occupational changes and unemployment levels of Indian return emigrants at the time of leaving from their country of destination and after return to the country of origin. Further, this article extends the debate on the socioeconomic level of return migrants, post their return, in comparison to the non-migrants. The data from the 64th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS), which is the latest available data on return migration, has been utilised for this study to explore the pre- and post-return migration statuses. The result shows that the occupational changes are substantially different in the pre- and post-return phases. Meanwhile, the labour force participation ratio is seen to have significantly declined among the return migrants. In addition, unemployment ratio is seen to be significantly higher for both pre- and post-return periods while economic level of return migrants is observed to be better than non-migrants. However, among the return migrants, the poorest are most likely to return than the richest and the category of middle class five times more likely to than richest. The study concludes that return migrants drastically suffered from unemployment and financial problems after return to the country of origin. As a way of addressing these issues, some appropriate policy levels indicated by this analysis are discussed.
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Notes
A phenomenon in which the status of migrants after return their earlier usual place of residence is termed as “post return emigration”.
As per the Emigration Act, 1983, Emigration Check Required (ECR) categories of Indian passport holders are required to obtain “Emigration Clearance” from the office of Protector of Emigrants (POE).
National Sample Survey (NSS) 64th round unit level survey data (2007–2008) covered entire India, and this is the only data source available for return emigration with detailed information about returnees.
National Sample Survey (NSS) data survey questionnaire has seven blocks. Each block has given different information. Blocks 1 and 2 feature basic information like sampling details. Block 3 contains household information including immigrant information which is classified by the variable of “whether the household migrated to the village/town of enumeration during the last 365 days”. It was binarily coded (Yes or No) as Yes for “immigration” and No representing “Non-migration”. Further block 3.1 accommodates out-migration/emigration information, which could be obtained from the variables of “whether any former member of the household migrated out any time in the past” it contained (Yes or No) (if Yes — act for emigration/out-migration and No is representing Non-migration). Likewise, return emigration details have been given in block 6 which is obtained by using the variable of “Whether the place of enumeration was usual place of residence any time in the past” also has (Yes or No) (if answered Yes—return emigration/return out-migration and “No” is act for Non-migrant). Each category of migration can be compared with non-migrants.
Weight cases are classified into four categories; they are fweights, pweights, aweights and iweights.
fweights indicate the number of duplicate observations.
pweights denote the inverse of the probability that the observation is included because of the sampling design.
aweights are those that are inversely proportional to the variance of an observation.
iweights are those that indicate the importance of the observation in some vague sense and iweights will define exactly how they are treated.
The study used quintile classes instead of monthly household income because NSS data not provided household income. The quintile classes classify by five different income classes from lowest to highest.
Marital status is an important component in the return migration aspect as it helps to find out among married and single, who is more likely to return.
Those who returned back to origin from other states in India are termed as “return out-migrants” (Tamil Nadu Migration Survey — 2015).
Temporary return: If the migrant intended to move again to the destination with less than 12 months of after return back to usual place of residence is treated as temporary return.
Permanent return: If the migrant, in the normal course, was likely to stay at place of origin after return and did not plan to move out of the place of origin, it was treated as permanent return migration.
In NSS data, the nature of work details was available at time of leaving from destination countries and post-return to India but the time period information is not available.
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Rajan, S.I., Amuthan, S. Labour Force, Occupational Changes and Socioeconomic Level of Return Emigrants in India. Int. Migration & Integration 23, 865–887 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-021-00866-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-021-00866-6