Fall in emigration, and reverse migration from the Gulf, challenge Kerala’s welfare model. The state must find a way
Migration trends indicate that the Gulf, which had long funded the Kerala development story, may soon turn out to be a headache if not a nightmare. Economic slowdown in the Gulf countries, state policies favouring replacement of migrants with local labour, influx of workers from Africa and countries such as the Philippines, are forcing a reverse migration that has serious repercussions for Kerala’s economy and society.
Fortunately, the rising dollar-rupee exchange rate has prevented a fall in foreign remittances to Kerala, but the return of a large number of migrants, many of them blue collar workers, could squeeze employment and impact consumption and retail trade.
According to the Kerala Migration Survey, 2018, by the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram, overall migration from the state has been showing a negative trend in the last five years. In fact, over the past decade, the number of people migrating to the Gulf has fallen (it stands at 1.89 million in 2018, down from 1.94 million in 2008 after peaking at 20.7 million in 2013) whereas the number of reverse migrants has gone up in the same period. The prolonged slowdown in the Gulf economies since 2008 and visions of a post-oil economy influenced many of these countries to embark on policies such as Nitaqat in Saudi Arabia, which encouraged employment of local labour over migrants.
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