Rural urban migration and its impact on urban labour markets in india

Empirical data and different studies reveal that after 1990’s, rural-urban had gained momentum. At the same time there are decreasing real wage rate, with higher unemployment rates in urban areas than in rural areas. Studies have argued that in-migrant labour may increase unemployment, lower the wages of low skilled local workers and also lead to an increase in wage inequality between the low paid and high paid workers. While others argued that the migrant labour don’t compete for same jobs, they provide cheap labour, bring about diversification of goods and services and bring in skill intensive technological change. There are studies in India which have attempted to address the issues, inter alia, such as factors determining migration; remittances and impact of migration on poverty, livelihood, health, inclusive growth. However, there has not been much studies that have looked at the impact of migrants on labour market, the plausible exception in this regard being the study by Sharma (1979) who have only focussed on the unemployment aspect. Given this broader context, this study would attempt to understand the socio-economic characteristics of migrant labour and non-migrant labour in a comparative perspective. The study will also try to examine the impact of migrants on employment and wage of local labourers.