Determinants of Rural-Urban Migration in Konkan Region of Maharashtra^§

The study has identified the factors responsible for rural-urban migration based on 120 sample respondents each of migrants and non-migrants spread over two districts, viz. Ratnagiri and Sindhudurg of Konkan region of Maharashtra by employing the logit model. The study has highlighted the importance of rural development programs like MGNREGA that are being implemented by the government with a view to provide employment and income to the rural population in the country. It has also shown that for both migrant and non-migrant households,, agriculture was the major source of income, and their consumption expenditure was more than the production expenditure. It has also been observed that migration has a positive impact on income, expenditure and net savings of migrant sample households. The regression analysis has shown that one unit increase in the age of household-head increases the probability of migration of family members by 0.81 per cent. The probability of migration of family member decreases by 0.003 per cent with one unit increase in before-migration income of a household. The odds ratio for family-size has indicated that with one unit increase in family-size, the probability of migration of family members increases by 8.7 per cent. There is a negative relationship between migration of family members and income from agriculture. As off-farm income of a household increases, the probability of migration of its family member decreases. The odds ratio for off-farm income implies that with one unit increase in off-farm income of a household, the probability of migration decreases by 0.018 per cent.