Rubber, cashew and remittances: the district's economy

Sample articleIllustrative text, not published research

Kanyakumari's economy rests on three legs that rarely appear in the same account: plantation crops in the hills and western taluks, rubber above all; processing work, cashew among it; and money sent home by people working in the Gulf, in other Indian cities and at sea.

Rubber

Rubber grows on smallholdings and estates across the district's western and hill areas. Its price is set far away, by world markets and the tyre industry, so a household's income can swing sharply from one year to the next with no change in how hard it works.

Work far from home

Like neighbouring Kerala, the district sends many workers abroad, especially to the Gulf. Their remittances pay for houses, school fees and weddings, and cushion families when crop prices fall. They also leave villages older, and tied to economies they cannot influence.

“A large part of the district's income is earned somewhere else.”

This study combines household survey data with interviews in Nagercoil and the villages around it to estimate how much of what families live on comes from each source.