Female migration to mega cities of India

Arunanand Murmu, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Kailash Chandra Das, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

This paper tries to understand the nature of female migration to rapidly expanding six mega cities of India namely Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad. Using the census data of 2001 and 1991, an effort has been made to understand the trend and level of female migration to those six mega cities. An attempt is also made to study the reasons for migration to these six mega cities by rural-urban residence of migrants. The migration data has been analyzed using the information for the place of last residence for 1991 and 2001 provided by census of India. The female migration is increasing as a reason of marriage and education in the six mega cities. An analysyis of the reasons for migration by the duration of stay of the migrants at the destination reveals that majority of the females migrate for work/employment and marriage.