TRIVANDRUM, 15 November 2002 — Employment prospects in the Gulf for Keralites could be in jeopardy unless the educational system in the south Indian state takes cognizance of the new skills being required for jobs in the region in the wake of speedy automation, a study says.

The study by the Trivandrum-based Center for Development Studies (CDS) says 80 percent of the 1.5 million Keralites employed in the Gulf countries are either unskilled or possess low skills. As the infrastructure for industry and services has already been put in place, the Gulf states are likely to opt for skilled workers from wherever they are available. It suggests policy changes in order that the Keralites do not lose out in competition to workers from nations such as the Philippines, Sri Lanka or Thailand.

The study says corrective policies are urgently needed in order to raise competitive edge of Keralites. The study has also taken note of increasing Arabization in the Middle East job market and visualizes faster growth of number of “return-migrants,” a term denoting those who have returned after working in the Gulf for a period of one year or more.

The CDS study was conducted over a period of five years by three noted researchers K.C. Zachariah, K.P. Kannan and S. Irudaya Rajan. The study titled “Kerala’s Gulf Connection: CDS Studies on International Labor Migration from Kerala” puts the total number of Keralites working in the Gulf at between 1.3 million and 1.5 million, with Saudi Arabia accounting for nearly 40 percent and the United Arab Emirates nearly one-third of the total.

Return-migrants now residing in the state number around 7.5 million who subsist on their savings, investments or skills they have brought from the Gulf nations.

The study holds the emigration as the single-most dynamic factor in the otherwise dreary economic growth and employment scenario of Kerala in the last quarter century. Non-resident Keralites, 95 percent of whom are working in the Gulf, remitted home 35,304 million rupees in 1998. It constituted as much as 22 percent of the net state domestic product (NSDP) in 2000. Remittances surpassed even the annual budget of Kerala in 2001-02.

On an average an individual emigrant was remitting 25,000 rupees. Besides money remitted through official sources, the Non-resident Keralites, or NRKs, brought in jewelry, cash, electronic gadgets etc. worth 5,413 million rupees during the year. The saving rate was stated to be around 49 percent in Kerala against the national average of 22 percent. NRK deposits in Kerala in 1998 amounted to 127,350 million rupees and they are growing at the rate of about 25 percent per year.

The study notes that the Gulf migration has resulted in some economic leveling among the social classes of Kerala as two-thirds of the migrants were from lower income groups or laboring households. It says, “As such the Gulf migration from Kerala took care of the equity dimension in a significant sense.”

The principal area of origin of the emigrants is Malappuram-Thrissur belt which sent 297,000 emigrants. Trivandrum was next with 131,000. Thrissur, Palakkad, Kozhikode, Kollam and Ernakulam each had nearly 100,000 emigrants in the Gulf.

The state had a total of 793,000 return-emigrants. While migration of Keralites began in 1940s, earlier they were migrating to other states of India which has begun declining since 1970s.

Women constituted only 9.3 percent or 127,000 among the total number of emigrants from Kerala. While Muslims made up nearly 52 percent of the emigrants to the Gulf, among women emigrants, Muslim women were just around quarter of the total number of women.

About 40 percent of the emigrants possessed either a secondary school certificate or a degree. Only 20 percent had some technical qualification. Nearly, 13 percent emigrants were Ezhavas (a backward community in the state), 12 percent were Syrian Christians, eight percent Latin Christians and eight percent Nairs. While Muslims were 52 percent among the Gulf earners, Muslim homes received only 47 percent of the total remittances. Christians (both Syrian and Latin denominations) made up 20 percent among the emigrants. But the Christian households were receiving 24 percent of the remittances. An average Syrian Christian emigrant earned 27,000 rupees. An average Muslim emigrant sent back remittances equivalent to 24,000 rupees.

The study looks into the psychological and social implications of the exodus to the Gulf. It estimates that nearly one million wives known as “Gulf wives” live away from their husbands who work in the Gulf. While the separation from husbands lent the women more opportunities for self development and gave them status and authority due to independent financial operations (80 percent NRKs send remittances in the names of their wives), it also engendered loneliness, anxieties, added responsibilities and adverse effects on children.

In the case of 2.4 percent of the “Gulf wives,” the husbands left them within 30 days of marriage while for 30 percent, within three months. Curiously, when the CDS field investigators asked the “Gulf wives” as to who they would choose a husband for their daughters among 1. NRKs, 2. Keralites working in Kerala or 3. Keralites working in other states of India, 84 percent approved the second option. Only 14 percent opted for NRK sons-in-law.

The CDS has made several recommendations to facilitate the integration of the NRKs with the life and development of Kerala. It suggests that the state government should introduce shipping services between Cochin and the Gulf countries which will provide substantial relief to nearly half of the NRKs in the UAE and will allow them to join their families once a year.

It criticized Air-India for charging exorbitant fares on Gulf routes from Kerala and urged the Kerala government to prevail on the federal government to introduce other commercial airlines to operate on the route to promote competition. It also recommended reducing the airport fee charged by Calicut and Cochin airports from 300 rupees to 100 rupees.

The study says the exorbitant fee (often in foreign currency) charged by professional colleges from NRK students is discriminative. It wants the names of the NRKs to be included in the ration cards and the voter’s lists. It also urges introduction of some savings schemes or pension scheme in collaboration with insurance agencies.

But the study paints a grim picture of investment atmosphere in the state and says the crucial issue is where to invest the money. The emigrants do not have much faith in the public sector. Trade union militancy also dampens enthusiasm. It wants creation of “investment friendly” atmosphere in Kerala whereby NRKs could invest in infrastructure, tourism, IT industry or higher education in the state.