Population Exchange and its Impact on Literacy, Occupation and Gender – Evidence from the Partition of India

Abstract

How do large scale, involuntary migrations and population exchanges affect sending and receiving communities? We examine the case of the partition of India in which approximately 17 million people moved within four years, resulting in one of the largest and most rapid population exchanges in human history. We find large effects due to the migration on a district's educational, occupational, and gender composition. Due to higher education levels amongst migrants, districts with 10 per cent greater inflows saw their literacy rates increase by 3 percentage points, while a 10 per cent increase in outflows reduced literacy by 1.2 percentage points. Due to disparities in the amount of land vacated by migrants, Indian districts with 10 per cent greater inflows saw a decline of 11 per centin agricultural occupations. Districts that experienced high inflows and outflows also experienced changes in gender composition. While the partition, driven along religious lines, increased religious homogenization within communities, our results suggest that this was accompanied by increased educational and occupational differences within religious groups. We conclude that these compositional effects, in addition to an aggregate population impact, are probably features of involuntary migrations and population exchanges and, as in the case of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, can have important long‐term consequences.

Consequences of forced migration: A survey of recent findings

“…Given that their effects can be found for adults fifty years after the Holocaust, an open question is how their children were affected or whether there are intergenerational effects of the expulsions. Bharadwaj et al (2015) find similar educational effects from the population exchange between India and Pakistan after the partition using district level data. While they work with aggregate data that cannot directly show the impact on educational attainment on the stayer population in India, they provide evidence for strong compositional changes.…”

Forced Migration and Human Capital: Evidence from Post-WWII Population Transfers

“…9 The literature on the effects of forced migration is surveyed in Becker and Ferrara (2019). For example, Card (1990), Borjas and Monras (2017), Bharadwaj, Khwaja, and Mian (2015), and Braun and Omar Mahmoud (2014) use forced migration to identify the effect of migration on economic outcomes at the destination.…”

Forced Migration and Human Capital: Evidence from Post-WWII Population Transfers

“…build a model that formalizes how forced migration can lead to a shift away from investing in physical capital toward investing in human capital.5 Becker and Ferrara (2019) survey the literature on the effects of forced migration Card (1990),. Braun and Omar Mahmoud (2014),Bharadwaj, Khwaja, and Mian (2015), andBorjas and Monras (2017) use forced migration to identify the effect of migration on economic outcomes at the destination. Several papers examine relatively shortrun effects of natural disasters Sacerdote (2012).…”