Abstract

                                In India, rural youth are the precious human assets who can play an important role in the development of agriculture and other allied activities. In this situation now it is widely felt that potential rural youth are mass shifting from rural areas to neighboring cities for gainful employment opportunities. The present study has been formulated with the key objective to identify the factors responsible for the shifting of rural youth from rural areas to neighboring cities. The study has been conducted in Coimbatore district with a sample of 120 rural youths. Difficult to run their daily life due to inadequate income from agriculture, unemployment, under employment, poverty, small land holdings and low production, non availability of inputs in required time and labour problem were the major push factors. Employment opportunities, high income, availability of good infrastructure facilities and lower risk from natural hazards were the major pull factors.

Key words : Agriculture, Push and pull factors, Rural youth, Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu .