Trends in Indian Labour Migration to Gulf Countries from 1990 to 2019: An Assessment of Literature

Abstract

Globalisation around the world has allowed the labour movement between the countries. International migration i.e. migration between one country to another country has become a common phenomenon. India has exported a significant number people migrating to different regions across the world under different circumstances. Large number of unskilled and semi-skilled Indian labour migration to Gulf countries is a recent phenomenon. The upward trend in labour migration to the Gulf countries started when large-scale development activities took place in gulf countries due to an increase in oil prices in the 1970s. The lack of employment opportunities, poverty, low wages and poor standard of living in India caused many Indians to migrate to gulf countries to gain economic benefits. There is a rapid growth rate of 79 percent in the Indian migrants who were migrated to GCC countries over the two decades. India was the leading country of origin of international migrants, with 17.5 million globally. As many as 9.3 million migrants are concentrated in gulf countries. India remains top among the other countries in terms of total remittances in 2019($83.1 billion), compared to 1990 ($2.3 billion), and it contributed 2.9 percent of the Indian GDP in 2018-19. The present paper represents recent trends in labour migration to GCC countries from India and also attempts are made to study the volume of remittances and its impact on the Economy. The paper is based on the secondary data from the publications of the national and international organizations and existing literature is used for the purpose of the present study.