Traditional paradigms of labour migration in India suggest migrant workers as vulnerable subjects in need of state’s protection. Consequently, the state had been called upon to stop distress migration. Post liberalization, the functions of the state changed, market forces opened up new opportunities, agriculture became resource intensive and undependable. In consonance, migration is understood to be inevitable and the role of the state shifted to making migration safe and secure. Parallelly, the shift in governance paradigms in favor of decentralizing and privatizing social security infrastructures, particularly healthcare - where the shift has been from strengthening public health systems to providing insurance based health care. The paper seeks to understand the impact of such shifts on migration by correlating it with healthcare needs of migrants, drawing upon the insights from the Jharkhand Migration Survey. The data shows a sizable percentage of migrant households used remittances for healthcare indicating the inadequacy of insurance based healthcare to address the vulnerabilities at the source.
Occupational health coverage for inter state migrant workers in the informal sector is limited due to domicile requirements, legality & duration of work among others. In negotiating such a scenario, often groups of migrant workers come together to form safety-nets for care work, also sharing the financial burden. While state policy has recognized and legitimized privatization of healthcare, it has not simultaneously recognized the informal choices and structures through which workers negotiate the impact of such privatization.
The paper subsequently attempts to use ethnographic insights to advocate for a new paradigm of migration governance recognizing the role of informal networks used by migrants to meet their needs for better and inclusive policy making while suggesting measures to improve existing coverage of welfare schemes in the health sector.
