Abstract
AbstractEvidence on the demographic components of city growth in the global South is scarce, and the role played by international migration is neglected. We analyze the importance of recent international migration in cities, compare it with that of internal movements, and evaluate the growth contribution across national contexts and the urban hierarchy. Combining individual‐level census data and geographic master files of metropolitan areas with indirect demographic estimation techniques, we cover 377 cities in seven countries. It is found that, in almost one third of cities, population change and replacement has been mainly determined by migration. The international component was larger than the internal one in more than half of cities. Whereas internal migration tends to decrease with rising city size, international movements tend to increase. Positive net international migration substitutes for the net losses from domestic movements in large cities, but complements the gains in intermediate‐sized cities.
Highlights
The urban transition, from a mainly rural to a predominantly urban society, constitutes one of the most important transformations in contemporary population geography
Relying on statistics by quinquennium from the United Nations (United Nations 2018, 2017), we introduce here the seven national contexts in the periods in which our data enable the analysis of city demography
To compare the importance of the two types of movements, we plot in Figure 1 all cities according to the annual rate of net internal migration and the rate of net international migration by country
Summary
The urban transition, from a mainly rural to a predominantly urban society, constitutes one of the most important transformations in contemporary population geography. Major challenges arise, due to growing slum settlements, strains on educational and health services, the limited capacity of the labor market to absorb the population growth, environmental degradation and climate change (UN-Habitat 2012; Rohat et al 2019). Despite these risks and opportunities of the urban transition, the demographic changes remain poorly documented, especially at the city level where planning can be implemented most effectively. We aim to fill this gap, focusing on the underappreciated role of international migration in comparison with the other components of city growth
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