Migration to bengaluru a study of return migration of IT professionals

Abstract

Bengaluru, Karnataka, is widely known as India s Silicon Valley and an important centre for Information Technology (IT). It is also one of the fastest growing cities in India. Migration to the city has contributed to its growth and this study has focussed on the phenomenon of return migration with specific reference to the return migration of IT professionals to Bengaluru. The main newlineobjectives of the study were to explore some of the factors underlying return migration in general and return migration to Bengaluru in particular, to examine the reasons underlying the decision to migrate, to examine the process of return migration, to describe transnationalism in the context of this return migration and to observe the experience of being back home This study used mixed methods and adopted concurrent triangulation to analyse and interpret the data in the study of the research problem. The framework adopted by Lee was also used to understand the factors that influence the decision to migrate within a broader theoretical framework to study return migration. The researcher explored the factors that influenced the decision to return which were an outcome of the push factors operating from the place of origin and the pull factors operating in the place of destination, India and Bengaluru in this case, both sets of which relate to the socio-cultural, economic and political realms. The newlineresearcher examined the factors that operated as push factors in the host country as well as those that operated as pull factors upon professionals working in the IT sector in the context of return migration to Bengaluru.According to the study, the pull factors being exercised from the city of newlineBengaluru were more relevant in terms of the forces underlying the decision to move. Bengaluru s reputation as a technopole or a high tech cluster has contributed largely to the way in which the migrants have been drawn to the city.