The Informal Sector and Rural-to-Urban Migration

This chapter examines the role of the informal sector in rural-to-urban migration and the urbanisation process in India during the 1970s. The chapter first shows that during the 1970s there was an increase in the proportion of rural to urban migrants and that the relative contribution of migration to urban growth (net of areal reclassification) was increasing. The chapter then places the role of the informal sector in this increasing urban oriented migration in the context of changing earning and employment opportunities in the economy. It is concluded that most of the migrants went to the informal sector, and that migration by the members of the poorer rural households increased not because their rural income declined but because the informal sector income increased.