GENDER AND SETTLEMENT CHARACTERISTICS OF INTERNAL MIGRATION IN INDIA

Abstract

Examining the processes of internal migration in India, a number of phenomena that are
different from migration movements prevalent in the international space can be revealed.
One of the most striking of these is the dominance of female migration, as 2.4 times more
women are involved in internal migration than men. In addition to economic legalities,
cultural and religious reasons play a decisive role in this. Due to the rules of patrilineality
and patrilocality prevailing on the subcontinent, which are also sanctioned in a religious
sense, women must move into their husband's household after marriage. This also
contributes to the fact that in India the birth of a daughter is not always accompanied by
undivided joy, since the family's educational investment - due to the loss of the woman's
labour value after marriage - is lost and is used in her husband's family. In connection with
all this, it can be seen that the number of women participating in internal migrations is
inversely proportional to the increase in distance. While more than 60% of migrating
women change their place of residence within a district, only 10% of them change states or
union territories. For the latter, the Indian megacities and their surroundings can be an
extremely attractive target area for settlement. At the same time, we have shown with our
studies that the areas with a high proportion of urban population are the most attractive
and also have a better population retention force, since the correlation coefficient for the
ratio of female immigrants and emigrants and the ratio of the urban population of the
subnational unit is 0.4