Socio-economic correlates of internal migration in India

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to analyse the spatial patterns of migration, variations in the level of socioeconomic development and the relationship between total migration (dependent variable) and selected
variables of development (independent variables) among the states of India. The entire research work is
based on secondary sources of data, collected from Census of India publications (2011), Migration Table –
D Series, Handbook of Statistics of Indian States, Primary Census Abstract of India and Basic Road
Statistics of India. The boundary of a state has been taken as the smallest unit of the study. The present
study reveals that, from the southern part of the country, the level of migration changes rapidly from high
to low grade towards the north. On the other hand, the states lying in the western and eastern part
experienced medium to high level of migration in comparison to the north-eastern states having a low
level of migration in India. The level of development is high or medium in northern, western and southern
states in comparison to the states, lying in the eastern and north-eastern parts of the country.