Abstract
This paper studies the role of urban-rural linkages as survival strategies and as a form of economic security in the face of increasing levels of urban unemployment. The study focuses on the residents of Broad hurst,a suburb of Gaborone, Botswana and presents the result of a survey of 360 households.The households contained 1560 people of whom 90.9% were 45 years old or less. Urban-rural linkages included the continuation of part time work and residence in the rural area and the continued management of land and livestock in the rural area. In all, 91.9% of the households interviewed owned property in rural areas while 70.3% owned residential land, 64.7% owned farmland, 63.9% owned livestock, 56.7% owned grazing lands, 14.4% owned business plots and an additional 9.4% owned other forms of rural property. Linkages with the rural area were reinforced through participation in social activities, exchange of goods and services, and the consultation with rural people primarily over family matters and the consultation by rural relatives on work or financial matters.Key words: urban-rural linkages, survival strategy, economic security, Botswana, Gaborone, Broadhurst, rural-urban migration, migrants, land tenure, property, livestock, household, rural development, urban survey.
Highlights
Urban dwellers, the urban poor, maintain strong linkages with the rural areas as a survival strategy
Most (72.2 percent) of the household members were born in the rural areas within Botswana; only 26.0 percent were born in urban areas whereas the remaining 1.8 percent were born outside Botswana
The residents of Broadhurst still maintain strong urban-rural linkages as evident from the study findings that those studied had not severed their ties with their rural kin
Summary
The urban poor, maintain strong linkages with the rural areas as a survival strategy. Links with the village of birth provide the only source of economic security Not knowing when they may experience an economic setback in the city, they maintain ties with villagers as a resource pool that can be taken advantage of during bad times. Across most of Africa, the separation of men from their wives and children remains widespread especially among low-income earners (Gugler, 1996; Potts, 1997; Findley, 1997). This practice can be traced to the colonial period. Most men studied had access to land in rural areas and about
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