MALE MIGRATION, EDUCATION AND PAID WORK: A CASE STUDY ON MARRIED WOMAN IN KERALA

Economic participation of women is very limited in the developing countries. The studies show that the state of Kerala in India is not different from this phenomenon. It is analysed that educational attainment of women is high and the work participation is very low in the state. As a remittance driven economy, Kerala has the largest emigrant stock, it is 22 lakhs and the total remittance is 85059 crores in 2018 (Kerala Migration Survey 2018). The impact of male migration on economy, household expenditure and consumption are got attention in the research but the impact on the working participation of left behind woman is not much discussed in Kerala. The various researches show that the major negative outcome of the migration is low level participation of left behind women in labour market. In this context present study is looking into the association of migration status of husband and educational attainment on participation of married women in paid work based on the sample collected from the three regions of Kerala in 2017. By using probit model, the result shows that higher education increases the probability of participating in the paid work by married women, whereas migration status of husband decreases the probability of participation of married woman.