Impact of international migration on poverty in India

India ranks first in the volume of remittances and it has grown from US $13 billion in 2000 to US $58 billion in 2011. The remittances sent back home by the emigrants helps in reducing poverty.This paper analyzes the effects of foreign employment on poverty in India. The explanatory variables used in the model are, foreign employment as percentage of total labour force, labour availability in agriculture as percent to the total labour force, public expenditure in agriculture per unit of agriculture labour, investment in agriculture per unit of agriculture labour, dependency ratio and adult literacy rate. The results of the analysis show that remittances sent by the international migrants helped in reducing poverty in India, as this variable is highly significant with negative sign. The results show, with increase in remittances per unit of agricultural labour by one rupee will reduce the poverty head count by 0.002 percent. The increase in total investment per unit of labour force also has a positive impact on reducing the poverty head count ratio. However, agricultural credit and public expenditure on agriculture has demonstrated no significant impact on poverty head count.