New Delhi: A 2022 World Bank study examining the social impact of migration has brought renewed attention to how overseas work may influence gender attitudes among returning migrants in Keralam.
The study, titled Beyond Money: Does Migration Experience Transfer Gender Norms? Empirical Evidence from Kerala, India, found that men returning from Saudi Arabia displayed significantly more conservative attitudes on several measures of gender norms than non-migrants.
The findings, which went largely unnoticed after the paper was published in March 2022, resurfaced recently on social media and prompted Congress MP Shashi Tharoor to call for introspection and discussion within the Muslim community.
The research examined whether migrants returning from countries with different social environments bring back not only financial resources but also social attitudes and norms.
Researchers used data from the Kerala Migration Survey 2013, conducted by the Centre for Development Studies in Thiruvananthapuram. The survey covered 14,575 households and 63,230 household members across the state's districts.
For its main analysis, the study compared 256 returning migrants from Saudi Arabia, 322 returnees from other Gulf countries and 8,614 non-migrants.
Saudi Arabia was analysed separately because researchers considered its social environment relatively more conservative, particularly regarding women's roles.
The study measured attitudes across five areas: employment, general gender attitudes, household decision-making, gender-based violence and extreme gender attitudes.
Compared with non-migrants, Saudi returnees were found to be more conservative on several of these measures. The difference was particularly pronounced in attitudes towards gender-based violence and extreme gender norms.
At the same time, the study found that Saudi returnees were less conservative on the employment index, suggesting that the findings did not represent a blanket opposition to women's participation in the workforce.
Some of the survey responses cited in the paper illustrate the attitudes examined by researchers.
Among Saudi returnees, 43% agreed that a man has the right to beat his wife if she disobeys him, compared with 37% among returnees from other Gulf countries.
The study also found that 75.3% of Saudi returnees believed that a man loses respect in the community if his wife or daughter moves freely outside the home.
Around 85% believed that a man who cannot control his wife loses respect in the community, while 64.8% said that the man should have the final say at home.
Researchers described Saudi returnees as particularly conservative on attitudes related to gender-based violence and physical violence against women.
However, the findings should not be read as establishing that migration to Saudi Arabia directly causes these attitudes. The study examines associations in survey data and explores the possibility that social environments and migration experiences may influence norms.
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor responded to the findings after the World Bank paper was highlighted by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow Milan Vaishnav.
Tharoor described the findings as disturbing and said Keralam's tradition of liberal and progressive Islam, communal coexistence and women's education should not be undermined by the import of conservative social attitudes.
He called for serious introspection and internal discussion within the Muslim community over the findings.
The study also drew a response from Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister member Shamika Ravi, who said the results were consistent with anecdotal accounts she had heard from Keralam over several decades.
Ravi highlighted the study's finding that returning migrants from Saudi Arabia were significantly more conservative than non-migrants on attitudes towards gender-based violence.
For decades, Kerala's relationship with the Gulf has largely been discussed through the economic lens of migration and remittances. Money sent home by migrant workers has transformed households, education, housing and consumption across the state.
The World Bank study raises a different question: What else comes home with migrants besides money?
Its findings suggest that migration can potentially influence social norms and attitudes as well as household incomes. In the case of Saudi returnees, the researchers found significant differences in attitudes towards gender roles and violence against women.
The study therefore adds a social dimension to Kerala's long-standing Gulf migration story. While it does not establish a simple cause-and-effect relationship between Saudi migration and conservatism, it highlights the need to examine how prolonged exposure to different social environments may shape attitudes after migrants return home.
The broader question is not merely what migrants bring back in the form of remittances, but whether some social norms also travel with them—and how those ideas interact with Kerala's own traditions of gender equality, pluralism and social coexistence.