Background

The majority of internal migrants in India are women. The 2011 Census estimated that India has about 45.6 crore internal migrants, which is about 38% of India's population. Of these, approximately 70% were female, and 20% were male. About 83% of women moved within a state for marriage or family reasons, compared to only 39% of males. Only 2% of women are stated to have moved within a state for work purposes. However, these statistics can be misleading since the Census allows only one reason in the database for every individual. Thus, if a woman migrated for marriage, then she remained a marriage migrant for the rest of her life, regardless of when she found employment. The Centre for Policy Research interviewed working migrant women in Delhi and found that in these households, even when they said that they moved for family reasons, they still took into account the financial opportunities women would have when making the decision about the move.

A high percentage of internal migrants going to cities reside in Delhi. Census data showed that almost a third of the populations of both Mumbai and Delhi are made up of migrants from other states. An ethnographic study of internal migrants in informal work in Delhi describes the double marginalization concerning the legal and social aspects, since most of the migrants do not have the documents Delhi requires.  They also face problems in accessing welfare services and their rights. The system is difficult to navigate, particularly for a migrant who does not know where to go to claim these benefits.

When the work is available, it pays poorly. The interviews in Delhi found women migrants earning between 4,000 and 5,000 rupees a month, about half the amount that men around them make, in low-paid menial jobs that include cutting threads, packing goods, and sewing at home for per-piece rate payments. The labour force participation rate among urban Indian women is around 25.8% while that of men is about 76%. The little money that women earn is often not theirs to control. A national survey indicates that 21% of Indian women are financially literate compared to 27% of men, while only 33% of women have active bank accounts compared to 45% of men.

The losses combined are not restricted to just money. Research on women migrant workers in Delhi and the surrounding region documents how women lost their friendships and support groups during the pandemic lockdown, and the isolation that followed. A study of 400 migrant households across eight Delhi settlements discovered that it is kinship and caste networks which serve as means of procuring housing, food and information about work for new migrant arrivals. A woman who arrives in the city without having such a network has very little to depend on.

The Horizon Network was founded in July 2026 to solve this problem. It aims to collect data that will document the problems faced by migrant women in Delhi, organise the available services, teach women how to manage their income, and connect them to training and jobs.