Mental Health Problems Among Migrant Labourers in India

One of the severely marginalised internal migrant populations in India has been the migrant labourers who not only face the challenges of acculturation but also experience acute powerlessness. They work within the unorganised sectors and are often denied employment opportunities and social security. The socioculturally induced distress makes them more prone to develop mental health-related problems and creates greater health disparities. To design an appropriate community-level intervention, it is crucial to accurately capture the symptoms experienced by a particular community. Hence, the current work explores the impact of migration on the mental health of migrant labourers in India. The data were collected with the help of an epidemiological survey on 234 unskilled migrant labourers and analysed using stepwise multiple regression analysis. Findings indicate that 47.9 per cent migrant labourers experienced mental health related issues, among whom female participants reported more symptoms of mental health related problems. Further, acculturative stress, experience of discrimination, and living constraints emerged as risk factors in the study. The findings indicate an alarming situation where the mental health of the migrant community flags the need to design appropriate community-based interventions to reduce health-related inequalities.