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Spatial analysis of husbands’ out-migration in India

Kunal Keshri, International Institute for Population Sciences, Mumbai
Kirti Gaur, Salaam Bombay Foundation, Mumbai

Migration in developing countries including India, is characterized by a common pattern of leaving wives and children behind at the place of origin and men migrating alone. The current engagement studies the geographical variation in the out-migration of husbands of women aged 15-49 years utilizing data from National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16). Geo-spatial analysis has been performed to confirm the spatial clustering of the districts with respect to migrant husbands. The proportion of migrant husbands is 7.5 percent in India. It is more than two times in rural (9.3%) than urban (4%) areas. We find an inverse relationship between migration of husbands and income of household. Most of northern and eastern states have higher prevalence of out-migrating husbands, however intra-state variation exists. Also, middle and lower Ganga Plain, Terai regions of Himalaya followed by southern Konkan coastal region has more prevalence of migrant husbands. These results have been confirmed by the highly significant spatial auto-correlation. India’s migration is governed by the differentials in demographic transition and level of economic development of the states. To conclude, we observed that most of the out-migrating regions are economic backward which in turn leads to the out migration of husbands to the economically developed regions.

Keywords: Internal migration, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Spatial analysis/regression, Migrant populations

See paper.

  Presented in Session P2.