Low-skilled Indian construction workers in the Gulf, Singapore and Malaysia Return to India, reintegration and re-emigration
Summary
Abstract
The global economic crisis has created a context in which return of low- and unskilled migrant workers
has increased in pace and amount. South Indians, who have formed an important labor source for the
construction sectors in the Gulf and South-East Asia for decades, are among the most severely hit. The
goal of this study has been to examine what happens with the labor migrants after return, i.e. their
reintegration patterns and their propensity to re-emigrate, and what policies exist to assist them. The
most important fieldwork data were gathered through a survey among 143 return migrants in different
locations in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Furthermore, several interviews with key
informants, phone calls with the return migrants and document study provided additional qualitative
data. Results showed that the period after return is greatly influenced by the preliminary phases of the
migration project, starting with initial recruitment and social influence and pressure from within the
home community. In these preliminary phases the success or failure of a migration project is already
largely determined. These factors are therefore also of crucial importance in explaining reintegration
patterns or the propensity to re-emigrate. It is not uncommon that migrants get exploited during the
whole process of migration, eventually leading to problems back in India that hinder reintegration.
Many returnees have to cope with debt problems, sometimes so heavy that they are apparently
unsolvable. However, not everybody truly tries to reintegrate, since a lot of returnees have the wish to
emigrate again. Migration is for many migrants a continuum and does not stop with the first return to
India. This re-emigration can be an additional mission for sufficient resource mobilization, or an
ultimate effort to solve the financial problems that have been piling up since migration was started.
Policies for return migrants hardly exist, although the state of Kerala does have extensive programs for
migrants and provides its returnees with welfare and pension schemes.