Revisiting the Return Migrants to Study the Stay Dynamics at the Place of Destination: A Duration-Based Analysis

Rahul Jha, The University of Manchester

Migration is a complex phenomenon with significant repercussions for both origin and destination. Labour migration is a prominent issue in the contemporary global landscape, with India being one of the largest labour-sending countries and the Gulf countries as a major destination for Indian migrant workers. The study aimed to explore factors influencing the length of stay abroad, return migration patterns, and the socio-economic impacts on migrants and their families with a focus on India to the Gulf migration corridor. The study on the characteristics and the factors influencing migrants' holding capacity at their destination would provide insights into the phenomena required to hold migrants for an extended period of time at the destination. Using the Kerala Migration Survey (KMS)-2018 data, we tried to assess the survival analysis model with different independent factors. By initial analysis of the Kaplan-Meier survival estimates, we found that the intent to stay longer at the hosting place was more significantly associated with the migrant’s age, marital status, family size, wealth index and education level. A survival analysis regression model shows a significant relation of age, marital status, and family size with a longer stay at the place of destination.

Keywords: International Migration, Multi-level modeling , Bayesian methods

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