Abstract
This paper reviews the recent literature on rural-urban migration in developing countries, focusing on three key questions: What motivates or forces people to migrate? What costs do migrants face? What are the impacts of migration on migrants and the economy? The literature paints a complex picture whereby rural-urban migration is driven by many factors and the returns to migration as well as the costs are very high. The evidence supports the notion that migration barriers hinder labor market adjustment and are likely to be welfare reducing. The review concludes by identifying gaps in current research and data needs.
Highlights
Rural-urban migration has been a key focus of economic historians and development economists for a long time
During the industrial revolution in Europe and North America, internal migration triggered two fundamental and complementary processes: the structural transformation of employment from agriculture to non-agricultural industries and services, and the subsequent economic growth associated with urbanization (Kim and Margo, 2004; Kim, 2007)
In the seminal papers of Lewis (1954) and Ranis and Fei (1961), rural-to-urban migration is presented as an equilibrating flow of perfectly elastic supply of workers from a rural sector that has surplus labor towards a modern industrial sector located in cites, a transition leading to capital accumulation in cities and economic growth
Summary
Rural-urban migration has been a key focus of economic historians and development economists for a long time. A longitudinal look at the existing data over the past decades shows that the intensity of internal migration has not followed a single trend but has varied significantly within and across regions: Studying internal migration flows up to 2010 in the sample of countries for which data were available, Bell et al (2018) find that internal migration mostly tended to decline in the 21 Latin American countries they studied (with the exception of Brazil and Chile); that it either stagnated or declined in the 8 Sub-Saharan African countries in their sample (with the exception of Mali which experienced a very strong increase); and that there was a mix of both declining and rising intensity of internal migration in the 9 Asian countries for which they had data, with the notable cases of China, Indonesia and Vietnam, which faced a very significant increase in their internal migration intensity (some of it likely due to the presence and effectiveness of migration policies as discussed in Bell et al (2020)).7 These evolutions do not show a clear link on average to the level of development, and no clear regional pattern seems to emerge with the exception of the decrease in migration intensity in Latin America and an increase in Europe (Bell et al, 2015, and Bell et al, 2018). In the rest of the paper, we will mostly focus on rural-urban migration, which is a core feature of economic development and has attracted the most attention in the economic literature
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
