Drive through almost any town in central or northern Kerala and the Gulf is visible: in the houses, the shops, the schools, the names of businesses. For two generations, work in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council has been the most important route to prosperity for hundreds of thousands of Kerala families. Remittances have paid for homes, education, weddings and health care. They have kept consumption high and construction busy.
That story is changing. Labour policies in Gulf countries have increasingly favoured their own citizens. Wages for many semi skilled jobs have stagnated. Shocks such as the collapse in oil prices in the middle of the last decade and the pandemic sent workers home in large numbers, some for good. Younger Malayalis who migrate are increasingly choosing destinations in Europe, North America and Australia, often as students first.
Who is coming back
Return migrants are not one group. Some come back after decades abroad, with savings and plans to retire. Some return early because they lost their jobs, often with debts and little savings. Some come back with skills and capital and want to start a business. Others bring health problems from years of hard physical work in difficult conditions.
What they share is a re entry into an economy that has changed while they were away, and a public system that was designed mainly to manage their departure, not their return.
What return migrants need
Our conversations with returnees, their families and support organisations suggest a consistent set of needs:
- Information about jobs, schemes and opportunities, in one place and in Malayalam
- Recognition of skills gained abroad, which often have no certificate that employers at home accept
- Advice and credit for those who want to start enterprises, with realistic support rather than one time loans
- Health care, including for chronic and occupational illness
- Social security, particularly for those who return without savings
Lessons from elsewhere
Other countries with large migrant workforces, such as the Philippines, have built institutions specifically for returning workers, including reintegration programs, skills certification and dedicated financial products. Their experience is mixed, but it shows that return can be planned for rather than simply absorbed.
A different economy
The deeper question is what kind of economy can make use of the experience, savings and ambitions of returning migrants and of the young people who might otherwise leave. That is a question for the whole of Kerala’s economic policy: investment, enterprise, urban development and education. Return migration is not a side issue. It is one of the clearest tests of whether the state can build an economy that does not depend on exporting its people.
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