The availability of information is another relevant factor to explain the inverse relationship between physical distance and migration. The analysis based on the IHDS explores the role of mass media in this regard. While some migrants move in search of a job, others remain at home hoping that they will hear about a job opportunity. The chances of identifying such opportunities from home often depend on contacts in the destination areas, which in turn may diminish with distance from that destination. In examining the potential role of mass media in diminishing this distance, the regression analysis based on the IHDS shows that household exposure to watching television and reading newspapers is positively and significantly associated with households having migrant members. Similarly, there is the question of access to ICT, which can help households’ access to information. The causal importance of such mechanisms is outlined, for example, in a randomized experiment in Niger, where households that received cell phones and were able to keep in immediate contact with friends and family experienced a significant increase in their migration into urban areas (Aker et al., 2011).

Access to information is often linked to established community networks, which increases the likelihood of an individual moving to the same destination. Having an established network of people from one’s own community in a particular destination can help new (or potential) migrants with finding an initial job and housing. They can also offer more familiar surroundings and diminish the sense of alienation in a new setting. In a sense, the existence of such a network is not a separate driver of migration; what matters is the earlier drivers of the migrants who set up the network. However, the lack of a network can certainly act as a constraint on today’s migrants.

The literature on India, however, suggests that the existence of a social network in source areas may generate an impediment for rural-to-urban migration. Focusing on male migrants, Munshi and Rosenzweig (2016) emphasize the importance of mutual insurance provided by rural networks at origin. Because migration reduces access to caste-based insurance networks for family members of the migrants who are left behind, the decision to migrate involves weighing the trade-off between an income gain from migrating, versus the lower risk from staying at home. The estimates in this study suggest that even a small increase in formal insurance in a village setting in India would greatly increase rural-urban migration. Wealthier individuals rely less on networks to insure them and hence are more likely to migrate.

At the same time, empirical analysis based on the IHDS shows that weaker “community bonds” and greater crime in origin areas may reduce the likelihood of “husbands” migrating away from the household. At first glance, this may appear to be inconsistent with the results of Munshi and Rosenzweig (2016), in that stronger community bonds or networks are associated with a higher probability of internal migration. But here the variable in question asks whether people get together to solve a community problem, such as the lack of water supply, or take care of their own families individually. This negative association between weaker “community bonds” and the probability of households having a migrant is statistically significant only for the sample of “absent husbands.” It is not surprising that the working age male (husband) is less likely to leave his household if communities do not collectively address common issues. The same holds true for the negative coefficient on the crime variable, which measures whether anyone illegally entered a family’s physical household.

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