Great Exoduses

The World Migration Report 2020 comes at a time when migration has become a major economic and political issue both nationally and internationally. The report puts the total number of international migrants at 272 million, which is 3.5% of the global population. Nearly two-thirds of the global migrants (176 million) lived in high-income countries, about one-third (82 million) in middle-income countries and the remaining 13 million in poor countries. Of the total global stock of migrants, around two-thirds (164 million) are migrant workers.

What makes migration of special interest to India is that it is the single largest contributor to the global migrant population. According to the report, India’s migrant population is 17.5 million, while the next two biggest contributors, namely Mexico and China, account for only 11.8 million and 10.7 million, respectively. Interestingly, the Indian government estimates the number of overseas Indians, which includes migrants and people of Indian origin, at a higher 31 million, with 4.5 million in the United States and more than a million each in Canada, Malaysia, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.