The article is based on an interview conducted by IndiaSpend with Tamoghna Halder, co-author of the “State of Working India report 2026” (SWI). Halder has a PhD from the University of California, Davis and teaches economics at Azim Premji University. Dr Halder’s view as summarised by us below are based on the remarkable SWI report which was published a couple of months ago.
Given how difficult it is to find gainful employment in India, Indians are naturally having to travel large distances to earn a living. Dr Halder makes three very interesting points regarding these migratory patterns.
Firstly, he says that migrants today are much better educated than migrants from a decade or two ago. Using data from eShram portal he explains how well-educated youth are over-represented among migrants relative to the broader population: “Migrants with higher secondary qualifications account for 15.6% of eShram migrants, compared to 9.6% in PLFS and 13% among all eShram registrants. Graduate and above workers make up 12.8% of migrants, compared to 8.7% in PLFS.
The informal migrant, in other words, is not the lower educated older worker but increasingly, they are young and have relatively higher levels of education, reflecting a direct consequence of two decades of expanding educational enrolment across India.”
Secondly, younger workers are much more likely to migrate than older ones: “Workers below 25 account for 11.6% of the PLFS workforce but 20.3% of eShram migrants. The 25-29 age group tells a similar story, with only 11.4% in PLFS, but 21% among eShram migrants. At the other end, workers aged 40 and above make up nearly half (48.1%) of the PLFS workforce, but only 24.4% of eShram migrants.”
Combining the two points made above, he explains that they interplay between youth and education is powerful i.e. if you are young and a graduate in India, the chances of you being a migrant are much higher: “Among migrants aged 29 or below, the share of those with higher secondary or graduate qualifications is visibly larger than among those aged 40 and above, where illiteracy and below-primary education dominate. Younger migrants therefore are systematically more educated than older ones.” [A chart from SWI which has been reprinted in the IndiaSpend article shows that in the 25-29 age group, nearly a quarter of the migrants are graduates as opposed to less than 10% for those in the 40+ age group.]
Thirdly, as expected Eastern Indians are India’s champion migrants. However, there is a twist in the story here: the Eastern Indian migrants tend NOT to be well educated. “Eastern zone migrants with lower education levels are travelling long distances, crossing zonal boundaries, and showing up as the dominant source of workers in districts far removed from their origin states. Northern migrants stay more contained within the northern belt; southern migrants largely dominate southern destinations. But the East stands out for the sheer geographic reach of its low-educated migrant streams.”
So, why is this?
Dr Halder says that Eastern India’s low-skilled migration highlights a very interesting paradox: while the educated are more likely to migrate than less educated, the more educated you are in India, the closer you will stay to home when you migrate. Here is Dr Halder’s explanation for why this is: “Several mechanisms could plausibly account for this pattern. Educated informal migrants may be more likely to treat their current jobs as transitional and staying close to home while actively searching for better formal opportunities nearby. Regional language, cultural ties, and social networks may also anchor lower educated workers more firmly to distant yet familiar labour markets, especially as they are also likely to be older—they may be relying on familiar networks that help with some form of social safety nets at the destination, even if the destination is far away. Less-educated migrants may also have greater economic compulsion and fewer reasons to stay within a familiar region, they follow work wherever it appears—even across long distances.” Millions of Bengali florists, Odiya plumbers, Bengali and Bihari taxi and autorickshaw drivers and Bengali artisans in the jewellery industry might be the anecdotal proof that Dr Halder needs to buttress his hypothesis.
This subject – of long-distance migration by less educated Eastern Indians – underscores a powerful dynamic underpinning a large part of the Indian economy (factories in southern and western India are heavily dependent on Eastern Indian labour). Hence IndiaSpend and Dr Halder dive deeper into this:
“Examining the largest net-sending states (UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, and Assam) helps one identify three distinct migration channels, each shaped by a different combination of economic pressure, social networks, and geography.
The first is distress-driven, long-distance migration, most clearly associated with UP and Bihar. Migrants from these two states dominate destination districts across large parts of the country. In certain districts of Maharashtra and Delhi NCR, more than 40% of all unorganised sector migrants originate from UP alone…
This migration is driven less by specific opportunities in destination states and more by the sheer pressure of large, young populations and limited local job creation. The report describes it as functioning as a systemic outlet for demographic pressure…
The second channel combines economic distress with established migration networks, most visible in Jharkhand and West Bengal. Both states are well below the median Indian states in terms of NSDP per capita, but their migrants move along more specific and historically rooted corridors. Migrants from Jharkhand tend to move northward; those from West Bengal are more likely to travel southward, with a notable concentration in districts across Kerala. These routes reflect long-standing social networks that channel workers toward particular destinations even under conditions of general distress—networks that have, over time, built the infrastructure of information, contacts, and trust that make certain destinations more accessible than others.
The third channel is characterised by spatial containment, most visible in Assam and Madhya Pradesh. Despite both states being low performers on per capita income, their migrants largely stay within proximate regions. Assam’s migration is largely self-contained within the northeast. MP’s dominance is concentrated within the central zone and immediately neighbouring districts.”
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