University:
Boston University
Course:
CAS PO 501 | Formal Political Theory
Academic year:

2023
Views:

85

Pages:

19
Author:

Salma Mitchell

5 In general, the estimates in Table 11 are consistent with an important role for migration in urban population growth. For eight countries more than half of the urban population growth during the 1980s resulted from migration and reclassification For only four of the twenty two countries is natural growth of the indigenous urban population in 1980 estimated to have contributed more than 75 percent of total urban expansion. Nonetheless, the range of estimates in Table 1.1 is very. considerable. On what do these differences depend" Consider, first, the differences in development levels and the fraction of population living in urban areas. In the (fixed country effects) regression reported in Table 12, the dependent variable pools data on the percent of population living in urban areas in 52 developing countries in 1960, 1970 and 1980, though the panel is unbalanced as a result of missing data. As GDP per capita rises, the traction of population in urban areas at first rises then declines, though the estimated turning point is at nearly 6500 US dollars at 1985 prices, which is beyond the range of almost all of the observations in our sample Even given the level of GDP per capita, the percent of population in urban areas rose significantly and substantially over time at the rate of just over 3.5 percentage points per decade according to the results in Table 1.2 The country fixed effects are not reported in Table 2. There are however, some significant outliers Given their income levels, the ten countries with the lowest rates of urbanization were Bangladesh. Botswana. Indonesia. Kenya. Nepal. Sudan. Tanzania, Thailand. Togo and Zimbabwe. At the opposite extreme eight of the ten countries with the highest rates of urbanization, given income levels, were in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil. Chile Colombia, Mexico, Peru. Uruguay and Venezuela plus Iraq and Israel Second, rural enterprises may be established in areas where out-migration is already common, perhaps precisely as a matter of policy design. Third. Benziger (1996, pp.561-2) finds "that access to cities in Hebei is strongly related to rural productivity and factor use, even as early as 1980. Counties with more industry were able to build on this hase to pull further ahead of less developed areas" Since migration to urban areas is normally much more common from villages close to town, Liang and White's observed positive association between rural enterprise development and out-migration could therefore reflect a spurious effect of proximity to town. It may therefore be premature to conclude that "This gives some initial indication that the government policy of preventing peasants from migrating by encouraging the establishment or rural enterprises does not seem to work "(Liang and White 1997, p. 3.31) Imha The preponderance of rural-rural migration in India has already been noted in connection with Figure 11. This is examined more closely in Table 2A. 2. which is derived from data reported in Economic tommission for Asia and the Pacific (ECAP. 1995) These data refer to the 1981 census on place of previous residence among migrants with duration of residence below five years In total about 50 million people changed their place of residence during the five years prior to the 1981 Census, or approximately 71 percent of the population 55 5 percent of the migrants in Table 212 moved from one rural place to another and of these nearly 72 percent (40 percent of all migrants) moved from one rural place to another rural place within the same district 9.92 million people (14 percent of the population) moved from a rural place to an urban area within the five years prior to the 1981 census. However, 4.38 million people moved from an urban to rural area in the same period, leaving a net urban migration of only about 0.8 percent of the population. Of those moving into urban areas 45 percent moved only within their district of origin, indicating the importance of proximity to town and that commuting does not entirely displace migration even for nearby residents Similarly, nearly 48 percent of urban-rural migrants moved only within the same district 21 II.b New Evidence In this section, data are examined from six sample surveys in five countries Ghana. Pakistan. Russia, South Africa and Vietnam. Life Time Migration Table 2B. 1 presents data on lifetime migration patterns among adults (ages 15 and over) from five of the country surveys. Consider first people observed residing in urban areas. The fraction of these populations born in the same (urban) place ranges from 56 percent in Vietnam and Pakistan to 45 percent in Ghana and only 40 percent in Russia. In other words, in all four contexts more than 40 percent of urban adults are migrants who have moved into their urban area. In each context a substantial portion of the urban residents were born in rural areas around 30 percent in Russia. 29 percent in Vietnam, 20 percent in Pakistan and 18 percent in Ghana Despite the controls which exist con nagration in Vietnam and which have existed in Russia, rural-urban migration has clearly been ignificant However, a smaller fraction of the adult populations of the larger towns and cities reports being born in a rural area than do the populations of the smaller towns (with the exception of Ghana) This gap is particularly large in Russia where only 15 percent of adults in the metropolitan areas Moscow and St Petersburg) were born in rural areas whereas more than 35 percent of adults in other urban areas of Russia were born in rural areas according to the 1992 survev "In contrast the fraction of adults born abroad (presumably largely immigrants) is higher in the large towns than in small towns nearly 14 percent of adults living in Accra, for example, were born outside of Ghana and more than 17 percent of adults in Pakistan's cities were born abroad (many, no doubt, born in India prior to partition) On the other hand the 1995 survey of Russia indicates a slightly higher fraction of the 11. The data sources are: Ghana Living Standards Survey 1988-89 Pakastan Integrated Household Survey 1991 Russia Living Standards Survey 1992 and 1995 South Africa October Household Survey 1994 Vietnam Living Standards Survey 1992-93 1 The data for South Africa do not permit easy identification of whether the place of birth is rural or urban 18 The differences un migration profiles of metropolitan residents between the 1992 and 1995 surveys seem to reflect some differences in sample coverage of the metropolitan areas rather than a major real change in only three years

Integral Migration and Urbanization - Recent Contributions and New Evidence Part 2

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