Abstract
Rural–urban migration in developing countries is considered to be a key process for sustainable development in the coming decades. On the one hand, rural–urban migration can contribute to the socioeconomic development of a country. On the other hand, it also leads to labor transfer, brain-drain in rural areas, and overcrowded cities where planning is lagging behind. In order to get a better insight into the mechanisms of rural–urban migration in developing countries, this paper analyzes motivations for rural–urban migration from the perspective of rural households in Uganda. A total of 1015 rural households located in southwestern Uganda were surveyed in 2019. A total of 48 percent of these households reported having at least one out-migrant. By means of logistic regression modeling, the likelihood for rural out-migration was assessed using household- and community-level socioeconomic characteristics as predictors. The results show that most out-migrants are from relatively wealthy households with a higher-than-average education level. Typically, these households are located in villages that are well connected with urban centers. Poor households in remote locations send significantly fewer migrants because of their limited access to migration information and poor transport networks. From these findings, the following policy recommendations are made: Firstly, efforts should be made to extend basic social services, including quality education, towards rural areas. Secondly, in order to reduce socially disruptive long-distance migration and the eventual overcrowding and sprawls of major cities, government investments should be oriented towards the upgrading of secondary towns, which can offer rural out-migrants rewarding employment and business opportunities.
Highlights
The ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ identifies migration as an important pillar and catalyst for sustainable development, especially in the global south [1]
We estimated the likelihood of a rural household sending an out-migrant and gained insight into who out-migrates from the rural areas in the Ankole sub-region of Uganda
We found that poorer households involved in subsistence farming and those located in remote rural areas were less likely to have an out-migrant
Summary
The ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ identifies migration as an important pillar and catalyst for sustainable development, especially in the global south [1]. A migrant stock of about 763 million people globally (of which 36% were in SSA) moved within their own countries (internal migration), mainly to urban areas [3]. This indicates that internal rural out-migration is dominant, and this trend in migration is predicted to continue into the future given the rural–urban inequality related to the social and economic aspects of life [1]. In spite of people leaving one place for another, migration generally brings the benefits of social and economic development to the origin and destination places alike [2,5]. Migrants bring cultural diversity to the societies at their destination and, in the case of their return, they take back social remittances in the form of skills and new ideas [5]
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