Exclusionary Urbanization and Changing Migration Patterns in India: Is commuting by workers a feasible alternative?

In this paper, we study the impact of changing trend of internal migration away from cities along with the exclusionary and unwelcoming nature of cities on the mobility of workers. We show that in the light of these changing trends, where cities are becoming unaffordable (because of costly housing facilities and higher cost of living), and individuals opt to commute to urban areas for work to optimize their income along with affordable housing and basic amenities in the rural and peri-urban areas on the outskirts of the cities. Using the latest nationally representative survey on employment and unemployment 2009-10, we show that higher urbanization, labor market factors (job availability, wages etc.) along with the location of jobs (agglomeration of industries and services) affects the decision of a worker to become a commuter. We find that higher urban and peri-urban population in a region causes higher commuting of workers from rural to urban areas due to better connectivity and more job opportunities in these areas as compared to their rural counterparts. The spatial clusters of manufacturing jobs in rural as well as urban areas lead to higher commuting , both ways- urban to rural, rural to urban. On the other hand, service sector jobs concentrated in urban areas attract workers to commute from rural to urban areas.