Migration and Role of Remittance as a Practice of Economic Sustainability among the Rural Migrant Households of Murshidabad District, West Bengal, India

Social consequences of internal migration in India have been studied widely as an economic intervention. Census data has made it evident that numerous poor workers migrate from rural to urban centres every year in search of employment. Factors like lower economic opportunities at the place of origin, lower wage rates in agricultural sectors, etc. compel the rural workers to migrate from rural to urban places. The amount of money the migrants send back to their families is called remittance which plays a significant role in developing the economic condition of the migrant households. In this paper, the phenomena of rural male out-migration have been studied with empirical evidence. A total of 500 migrant households were surveyed as sampling units from 5 different CD blocks of Murshidabad district. The objective of this study is to analyze the pattern of out-migration of rural workers from the sample blocks. The role of remittance as an economic diversification strategy in these migrant households is the main thrust of this study. The data collected from primary sources have been processed and analyzed in SPSS with both descriptive and inferential statistical tools. The study reveals that 64 percent of migrant households use remittance as a means of daily expenses whereas only 6.2 percent of households use remittance for assets and property accumulation. So, remittances have been instrumental as an economic strategy for subsistence and poverty alleviation in the Murshidabad district of West Bengal, India.