A Regional Perspective on Caste-Based Migration: Evidence from West Bengal

Abstract

Migration, or the movement of population from one area to another, is an integral part of society. Since ancient times, people have moved from one area to another for various reasons. That trend is continuing in the 21^st century as well. Migration is a big problem in the world. India is no exception; rather, it has a considerable impact on India's socio-economic structure. Internal migration can be classified into i) Inter-state migration, ii) Intra-state migration. An attempt in the present study is to focus on intra-state migration for scheduled caste (SC) people in West Bengal, taking the data from the 2001 census. At present (2019), West Bengal has 23 districts, but in 2001, it had 19 districts. Within these 19 districts, migration occurred from i) rural to rural areas, ii) rural to urban areas, iii) urban to rural areas, and iv) urban to urban areas. Moreover, migration also varies with the duration of residence. In the 2001 census data, five periods of duration have been taken into account like 1) All durations of residence 2) Duration of residence 10 years and above 3) Duration of residence 5-9 years 4) Duration of residence 1-4 years 5) Duration of residence less than 1 year. From the 2001 census data, it has been observed that the main determinants for male and female migration are work/employment, business, education, marriage, moved after birth, moved with household, and others. The present research is aimed at establishing the extent of influence of duration of residence and types of migration on migration. This relationship has been examined across gender and also reasons for migration. The models developed using regression analysis for each segmentation examine the impact of duration of residence and types of residence on migration.