According to Census 2001, 33 million people or 8.1% of the Indian workforce were migrants for economic reasons. Over 80% of these migrants were male. Labour mobility also appears to be low because urbanization rates have not picked up sharply over the years, changing by roughly three percentage points per decade, irrespective of the urban definition used.
Recent research has however questioned this view. First, labour migration in India tends to be circular in nature in both short and long-term migration streams and is not adequately captured by Census data.
While Census migration data is useful to understand certain aspects of migration, ....
