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Every year, millions of Indians leave their villages and move to cities. This migration is primarily driven by the search for better jobs but also by education and marriage. The positive impacts of this migration on the rural economy, through remittances, is well-documented—but how does migration affect the social dynamics of the village? According to a new study by Mr Amita Bhide and others published in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, while large-scale out-migration improves a village’s standard of living, it does not disrupt its social structure. To show this, the authors explore in detail the impact of large scale out-migration from Kunkeri, a village in Maharashtra’s Konkan region and a historical hotspot for out-migration, especially to Mumbai. The authors conduct an ethnographic survey in 2017 and compare the results with data from the 1961 and 1987 censuses.