India

PCII operates three initiatives in India: Migrants Resilience Collaborative, Grassroots Resilience Institute and the Climate Resilience Initiative.

Key Facts on internal migration

Overview

Number of internal migrants

140 million internal migrants move for work ^[1]

Migration trends

62% migrants move from rural to rural areas followed by 20% migrating from rural to urban ^[2]

Key destination areas

^[3] Maharashtra, Delhi and Gujarat

Prominent sectors of employment for migrants

^[4] construction sector, agriculture and manufacturing sector

Climate impacts

There are 14 million^[6] estimated climate migrants in the country. An estimated 45 million people are predicted to migrate by 2050 as a result of climate change^[7]

Seasonal migration is a primary coping strategy for a large rural population faced with agricultural distress. This is driven by a combination of economic and climate-related factors.

Climate change impacts are experienced in destination areas as well. Migrants at destination locations usually reside in areas which are already prone to climate related impact.

Top three impacts at source on livelihoods in India are wage loss (57%), wage cuts (56%) and crop loss (43%), and household impacts are food insecurity (41%), health issues (41%) and house damage (37%). (Sample size - 7340)

Top three impacts at destination on livelihoods are wage loss (72%) , wage cut (56%) and job loss (31%), and household impacts are health issues (59%), food insecurity (45%) and house damage (33%). (Sample size - 1135)

Stories of climate-affected internal migrants from India

Geographical Presence of PCI