Employment structure and rural-urban migration in a Tamil Nadu village: focusing on differences by economic class

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, migration of workforces from rural to urban areas has accelerated in south India accompanied by remarkable urban-based economic development. To investigate the nature of such ruralurban migration in detail, especially any differences influenced by economic class, a study village was selected from the Madurai District. The detailed analysis found the existence of clear inter-class difference in terms of the shift to non-agricultural occupations; that is, the wealthier class tended to find more remunerable non-agricultural jobs, such as white-collar jobs. The most striking finding was that the traditional class structure in rural India based on ownership of farmland was basically unchanged even after nonagricultural jobs became much more important. This was because of the huge expenditure for education necessary to acquire remunerable jobs and the differential access to credit markets among the different classes.