Paper short abstract:

In India, female migration is mostly associational as per the primary reason reported. Focusing on all migrant women we find that more women than reported as economic migrants, join the labour market eventually, while some exit. This paper analyses the factors associated with such behaviour.

Paper long abstract:

Female migration accounts for almost one-third of internal migration in India. However, their movement is not independent and a very small proportion is reported to move for employment reasons. Though it is predominantly associational, the growth rate in economic migration among female is increasing and higher than male during 2000s (Economic Survey 2016-17). With shrinking opportunities in the agriculture sector and inadequate work available in non-farm, there is a higher movement towards urban areas. While the female labour force participation and absolute number of workers is declining (since 2004-05), movement towards urban location may provide wider choices of work to women. It is hypothesised that these choices will allow economic mobility to migrant women in terms of their work status. Also, there are both entry and exit from the labour market post-migration. The objective here is to test this hypothesis and analyse what are the factors associated with entry and exit of female migrants from the labour force. National Sample Survey data on migration for 2007-08 (latest round available) is used for the analysis. Logistic regression is used to obtain the results. It is found that age, education, children, marriage, caste, spouse's education and work, and household income plays important role in explaining the employment decision of adult women. Result also brings out the difference in migration-linked-shift in work status among men and women and a continuation of traditional roles for female migrants in contrast to male migrants.