Social and economic impact of international migration: a case study of Indian Diaspora in the U.K

Atreyi Majumder, University of Delhi

This paper attempts to assess the impact of people’s movement from India to the UK, on the basis of a small survey of professionally advanced and well-off section of immigrants of Indian origin, lasting from January 2001 to December 2001. The direct interview method entailing considerable interpersonal communication revealed that the change of environment for the educated and skilled people from India had a dramatic effect on their lives along with that of the two nations. The early Indians in the UK were sojourners, temporary residents in a strange country who always planned to return to their homeland when their task was accomplished. The sojourning tendency led to a high degree of internal solidarity, formation of many ethnic groups and ethnic enclaves, creation of multi-centred families in place of uni-centred ones, separation between near and dear ones, emergence of parachute kids with concomitant stress, strain, acute homesickness and ruination of health besides social conflict and tension.