New Delhi, April 13 -- What is unfolding in Delhi does not follow the familiar pattern of migration driven by lack of employment. Work continues, daily wages are still being earned, and yet a quiet exit of migrant workers is underway - not the mass exodus one saw during Covid but more of a steady trickle of informal workers.

What has changed is the cost of sustaining life alongside that work. The current movement of workers is better understood as a cost-of-living exit, triggered most immediately by the cooking gas or LPG crisis. Recent reporting shows that migrant workers are not leaving because opportunities have disappeared, but because basic survival has become unaffordable. A Guardian report documents how workers are skipping meals ...