Migration and reverse migration: Gulf-Malayalees’ perceptions during the Covid-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT

The United Arab Emirates has witnessed an exodus of long-term non-resident Indians, especially Malayalees, due to unforeseen impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The Emirates’ consequent economic setbacks, including a fear of the virus and falling job and financial security, threatened the survival of Indians – the largest expatriate demographic in the world and the Emirates. While apprehensive about their homeland’s ability to accommodate a mass reverse migrant population, the reverse migrants still retained attributes and values they associated with migration to the Emirates. Since the UAE hosts the largest number of Keralites in the world, the sample for this study comprises the first batch of Gulf-Malayalees, who had registered to return to Kerala. Through a means-end approach, this study reviews respondents’ attributes, consequences, and values at the time of migration and compares it with their perceptions during the sudden Covid-19 related reverse migration from the United Arab Emirates.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19 pandemic
• migration
• reverse migration
• non-resident Indians
• Gulf-Malayalees
• Kerala
• United Arab Emirates

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the volunteer teams of Pravasi India, Musaffah region, Abu Dhabi, NORKA, UAE, and KMC – Abu Dhabi for their valuable support in the collection of data for this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Geo-location

Abu Dhabi, UAE (N 23°40′00″ E 54°00′00”).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Devaki Vadakepat Menon

Devaki Vadakepat’s (New York University) research area is anthropology. Her academic and non-academic articles covering Asian, Arab, and Islamic cultures have been published in newspapers, magazines, and international journals.

Vanaja Menon Vadakepat

Vanaja Menon Vadakepat with specialisation in marketing has also served at the Haramaya University, Ethiopia, and at the Strathclyde Business School, Abu Dhabi before joining NYIT. Dr. Vadakepat’s research interests lie in the area of consumer behaviour related to Arab markets.