Working Condition of Internal Migrant Workers in Kerala, India: An Intertemporal Analysis

Kerala, a state identified for its high human development index, attracts a significant number of internal migrant workers from other parts of India. These workers contribute substantially to Kerala's economy, particularly in sectors such as construction, agriculture, and informal industries. However, their working conditions have been a subject of concern. This paper aims to examine the working conditions of internal migrant workers in Kerala, both in their native state and destination state, and to identify the issues related with working condition and to estimate the worker’s perception of working condition with response scales. The primary data is collected by using an interview schedule, from 400 randomly selected internal migrant workers engaged in construction sector. A multistage sampling method was adopted for the purpose. The study found that migrant workers receive higher wages in Kerala than their native place and they need to work only fewer hours than the native state. Migrant workers' perceptions of their working conditions play a crucial role in determining their job satisfaction, productivity, and overall well-being. The migrant workers in Kerala often experience challenges like inadequate access to healthcare, limited social security benefits, low wages, long working hours, and poor working conditions This paper explores how migrant workers in Kerala perceive their working conditions, including aspects such as safety and health, workload and working hours, wages and benefits, interpersonal relationships with co-workers and supervisors. Perception of migrants with regard to their working condition also attained using a three-point Likert scale with options like “comfortable”, “somewhat comfortable” and “uncomfortable”. The estimated score for perception is 1079 out of 1200, which indicate that almost all the migrant workers perceived a comfortable working condition in Kerala the overall perception of working condition of internal migrant workers in Kerala is comfortable as compared to their native state.