Labour market in a state of flux

South Gujarat is a clearing house for labour that comes and goes. In the course of the research reported on in this publication, Chikhligam and Gandevigam were my points of departure for moving around into the countryside. To find out how the rural proletariat is making its living I had to leave the villages of my fieldwork which only provide employment to many of the local landless for part of the year. In the first instance, this made it necessary to survey the sectors and locations in which the workers from Chikhligam and Gandevigam ended up, usually temporarily. Secondly, I could not avoid examining the question of why the marginal and landless peasants who represent the principal target group of this study, profit so remarkably little from the strong growth in urban and rural employment in the cities and countryside of south Gujarat. The purpose of this chapter is to show how people come into contact with employment possibilities away from the village. The chapter starts with a brief exposition of what I consider to be the principal characteristics of those who participate in labour migration.

The flow of migrants travelling to and fro can be divided on the basis of the rhythm of circulation: i.e. the period of time involved; the distance that needs to be covered between departure and arrival point; and finally, the principal personal characteristics of the migrant, such as sex, age, and social-economic status in the area of origin.