ABSTRACT
Migration is a very complex social process, and the factors associated with migration are more diverse and intertwined. A number of theories and models like Ravenstein’s (1889) ‘The Laws of Migration’, Stouffer’s (1940) ‘Model of Intervening Opportunities’, Lee’s (1966) ‘A Theory of Migration’ and many micro studies have been done to understand the factors associated with the process of migration in the field of migration studies. While Ravenstein (1889) observed that migrants move from areas of low opportunity to areas of high opportunity, Todaro (1969) showed that the discounted wage differential between the place of origin and place of destination motivates people to migrate. Scholars like Connell et al. (1976) argued from their village studies in India that land non-availability at the village level is the primary economic force driving emigration. In the words of Mukherji (2001), ‘The more an individual is poor, landless and socio-economically deprived, the greater the chance of his migration from rural to urban areas.’ Apart from that, the distance factor in the process of migration is a more contentious issue in the field of migration research. While scholars like Ravenstein (1889) and Zipf (1946) expressed the same view that the volume of migration tends to vary inversely with the distance, Stouffer (1940) questioned the generalisation that there is any necessary association between migration and distance. Instead, he argued that ‘the number of persons going a given distance is directly proportional to the number of opportunities at that distance and inversely proportional to the number of intervening opportunities’.
