Answer the following questions in not more than 150 words.

What are the socio demographic consequences of migration?

Migration can never be considered in isolation; it is a response to the uneven distribution of opportunities over space. When an individual or a family relocates, it has indirect effect on the many variables of society and demography. As a first, it leads to the redistribution of the population within a country. This means certain regions end up with more people than it can handle, whereas certain other places sustain itself with far lesser number of people. Thus, without effective policy intervention by the Government, regions with greater opportunities gets too many migrants while the region with lesser population remains untouched by developmental activities, lacking proper infrastructural facilities. Moreover, migration renders serious imbalances in the sex ration in both the origin and destination of migrants. Unchecked migration can lead to over-crowding, which puts pressure on the existing social and physical infrastructure in the urban areas. This ultimately leads to unplanned growth of urban settlement and formation of slums. In addition, due to over-exploitation of natural resources, many urban cities are facing acute problems of depletion of ground water, air pollution, disposal of sewage and management of solid waste. From an individual’s perspective, migration is beneficial as leads to an improved standard of living, whereas from a larger societal perspective unchecked and unplanned migration is a cause of worry. The Government of the land has to find reasons for out-migration and create opportunities to minimise it.

On a side note: Why had Sundar Pichai gone to the U.S.? Why couldn’t he complete his education here and lead to Google-like company here? Why is there an influx of migrants to the Europe?

Migration is not that bad, from an evolutionary perspective. Early humans migrated in search of livelihood and had mixed with other groups of people. Our DNA is a pool of genetic materials, thanks to this mixing of early migrants. Populations should intermix for natural selection to happen, but the current artificial migration (like forced, either directly or indirectly) is creating undue stresses on the natural resources, which is unhealthy if we are looking for long-term sustainability.