ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to identify the important patterns and characteristics of female rural-to-urban migration and, where possible, to illuminate the findings with information available from micro level studies. It discusses the policy implications of the findings with special reference to the urban poor. The striking difference between female rural-to-urban migration patterns in the north and in the south deserves further consideration since this is the most consistent variation to emerge from both macrolevel and microlevel data. The contrasting patterns and characteristics of female rural-to-urban migration in northern and southern India emerge consistendy in both mac rolevel and microlevel studies. Women were found to be almost totally alienated from control over family resources; men control family property, income, and women's labor. The migration of women to cities in India has long been dismissed as irrelevant to urban planning because of the assumption that women come as dependents of men.
