INTERNAL MIGRATION IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES: AN OVERVIEW OF RECENT EVIDENCE

Abstract

Over the last decade or so, considerable attention has been given to international migration. More recently, the pendulum has begun to swing back, a little, to the more traditional focus upon internal migration. The aim of this paper is to offer a brief overview of some of the drivers of internal migration and the economic consequences of these movements, with particular attention to some of the contributions from the more recent literature.Much of the inter est in int ernal migration in developing countries has focused upon population movements from the rural to urban sectors . The resultant reallocation of labor is key to the structural transformation from agriculture to industry and services that is typical of the economic development process. How efficiently this reallocation occurs is therefore critical to prospects for development. The early dual-economy models argued that too little migration occurs and this acts as a barrier to progress (Lewis, 1954). Some of the subsequent literature maintains that wage setting in the modern urban sector results in excessive migration (Harris and Todaro, 1970). A few, very recent articles claim that the sorting of labor between the urban and rural sectors is actually perfectly efficient and there is no cause for concern in this process (Lagakos and Waugh, 2013; Young, 2013).Our interest in internal migration is, however, not confined only to the efficiency of this process but also how it impacts the distr ibut ion of the benefits fr om devel op ment, and how it sha pes a wide ga mut of social outcomes. Certainly the gap in living standards between the rural and urban sectors of developing economies is very wide; indeed, given the magnitude of this gap an obvious question is why even more migration does not occur. The cumulative dynamics of migration, whereby prior migration engenders mor e migr ation, ca n lea ve pocket s of poverty untouched by migr a tion. Migration of individuals can split families, leading to conjugal separation and de facto single parent families, thus potentially affecting fertility, marital stability, transmission of sexual diseases and the upbringing of children.Nor is rural-urban migration the sole source of interest in these effects; whether this is the dominant direction of relocation varies considerably across countries, depending largely upon the state of urbanization reached. In predominantly rural societies, the most common place-to-place movements are often rural-rural; in Latin America, where urbanization rates are extremely high, most movements are urban-urban.What does the recent evidence t ell us about some of these issues, and what are the difficulties encountered in compiling such evidence? Section 1 begins by looking at some of the limitations of our existing data to investigate internal migration and its consequences, as well as sketching the broad picture suggested by the existing data. Section 2 then turns to evidence on some of the drivers of internal migration, including the search for improved income opportunities and the development strategies shaping these; the role of education and dispersal of amenities; the underlying effects of climate cha nge, natural disast ers a nd violence; as well as the concer n for fa mily unification. The recent claims that migration between rural and urban areas is really quite efficient must, of necessity, involve no effective barriers to mobility. S ection 3 t a kes up some of the evidenc e with r espect t o such potential barriers: notably with respect to credit constraints in financing a move, but also the roles of remoteness and distance, of lack of information and its interaction with social networks, and of int ervening opportunities. Some of the economic consequences of internal migration and associated remittances are then examined in Section 4. While clearly important, the social consequences of migration are, sadly, beyond the scope of this paper which is already too long. …