Pattern of Migration at the Household Level: An Explanation through Geometric Law

In India, caste system has strong routes in society and it affects the environment in which migration decision takes place. Since different caste/ religion groups have different impact on migration process thus in the present study an attempt has been made to study the trends in rural out migration at the household level according to different caste/ religion groups. Data have been taken from a survey conducted in the flood prone area of Bihar, India in 2010. Some probability models have been proposed to describe the phenomenon and it has been applied to the observed distribution of migrants from the households. Under certain assumptions, it was found that inflated geometric and beta geometric distributions explain satisfactorily the pattern of migration. Also in this study an attempt has been made to know the distribution of risk of migration which cannot be observed directly.