Accordingly a new study says factors like the declining population in the 19-25 age groups and stagnant wages in the Gulf countries could be responsible for migration from Kerala declining 11% between 2013 and 2018. S. Irudayarajan, who led the Kerala Migration Survey (KMS) 2018 told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram "Of the 2.1 million emigrants, 15.8% are females and however, there is a reduction of 3 lakhs migrants, which is one-tenth of the number of migrants in 2013. In 2018, we reached a stage where migrants figures shown a negative growth of 11.6%”.
Meanwhile, when explaining the reason for the decline Irudayarajan said "Wages in the Gulf economies have not improved after the global economic crisis. This has led to lower savings, de-motivating them to migrate and another reason is wages in the domestic economy have increased compared to other states”.
Further when explaining he said the price of oil,
on which the Gulf economy is based, has been declining since 2010. He noted "Although
the last one year has seen a slight increase in oil price, the growth of the
Gulf economy has suffered a major setback and hence due to nationalization
policies such as Nitaqat and recently introduced family taxes in Saudi Arabia,
the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies appear to be not that conducive
for current and prospective migrants”.