Question

What are the socio-demographic consequences of migration?

Answer 1

Migration is a response to the uneven distribution of opportunities over space. People tend to move from a place of low opportunity and low safety to a place of higher opportunity and better safety. Consequences can be observed in economic, social, cultural, political, and demographic terms.

1. Demographic Consequences: Migration leads to the redistribution of the population within a country. Rural-urban migration is one of the important factors contributing to the population growth of cities. Age and skill selective out-migration from the rural area have an adverse effect on the rural demographic structure creating serious imbalances in age and sex composition. The male population within the working-age group migrates out of rural areas leaving females, children, and old aged people, which increases the share of the dependent population in rural areas. Urban areas receive heavy in-migration of working age male population, causing sex ratio to be highly unfavorable for females.
2. Social Consequences: Migrants act as agents of social change. The new ideas related to new technologies, family planning, girl’s education, etc., get diffused from urban to rural areas through them.
   Migration leads to intermixing of people from diverse cultures. It has positive contributions such as the evolution of composite culture and it widens up the mental horizon of the people at large. But it also has serious negative consequences – anonymity creates a social vacuum and a sense of dejection among individuals. The continued feeling of dejection leads people to fall into the trap of anti-social activities like crime and drug abuse. Also, it may lead to loss of identities among the emigrants. Due to heavy male out-migration from rural areas, the situation for females becomes especially difficult because they have to look after both domestic and economic work in the villages, leading to higher participation of women in agriculture without a decrease in their household workload. Migration of women either for education or employment enhances their autonomy and role in the economy.
   Urban areas receive heavy in-migration of working age male population, causing sex ratio to be highly unfavorable for females, which gives rise to crimes against women and increases their vulnerability. Unemployment leads to an increase in the crime rate in urban areas.