From Home Village to Metro City: Looking back and ahead at a labour migration corridor for domestic workers in India
This study investigates the migration of women from Ganjam, Odisha to Mumbai for domestic work, examining changes in intermediation processes before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through longitudinal qualitative research, it highlights the evolving dynamics of migration, labour conditions, and gender-specific challenges faced by migrant women at risk of ending up in forced labour conditions.
This report is based on a study examining the life and work of women migrating from one village (in Ganjam, Odisha) to Mumbai, Maharashtra, and their experience of working as live-in domestic workers. Deploying a longitudinal lens and presenting a set of individual case studies of live-in workers traversing this corridor, the study seeks to locate its analysis at both origin and destination points within the context of broader social and economic processes that have shaped a particularly specialized and concentrated corridor. Field research conducted during the pandemic highlights the disruptions and adaptations in this migration corridor while underscoring the invisibility of women migrants' experiences in public discourse and the intersection of social, economic, and institutional factors shaping such a feminized migration stream.
Placement agencies and migrant live-in domestic workers in an Indian metro city: A view from below into the evolving practices of intermediaries in Mumbai