Escaping Local Risk by Entering Indentureship: Evidence from Nineteenth-Century Indian Migration

Abstract

Of the millions of Indians who migrated internationally in the long nineteenth century, over one million went as indentured servants in a massive South-South migration. I test how price volatility in origin markets in India affected out-migration under indentureship contracts from 1873-1916 to four major destinations around the world. Using new, unique district-level flows calculated from roughly 250,000 individual records, I show that indentureship take-up is consistent with migrating to escape local price volatility.