Migration and poverty dynamics: Transferring rural poverty to urban areas
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Date
2015-04-17
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University of Ghana
Abstract
Migration is an enduring theme of human history and considered as
one of the defining global issues of the twenty-first century. It is also a
major component of population distribution and change in both
places of origin and destination. Among the major changes caused by
migration in places of origin and destination is poverty, which is a
multi-dimensional phenomenon. The migration poverty nexus is
seen as poverty causing migration, migration causing poverty and
poverty alleviated by migration. This poverty is seen as 'cause' and as
'consequence' of migration. The prevalence of poverty is substantially
higher in rural areas than in urban centres in almost all developing
countries. Poverty has therefore been conceptualised to be a rural
phenomenon. This not withstanding, it is now recognised that the
rapid growth of urban population has led to a worsening poverty in
urban areas. Though urban population growth is largely by natural
increase, internal migration still remains an important factor that
contributes to urbanisation. Analysis of Poverty Profile in Ghana
shows an increasing poverty in the Greater Accra region which has a
large number of in-migrants and this has been associated with the
high net migration to the region. It has often been hypothesized that migrants from ru ral areas simply transfer poverty from rural to urban
areas. This paper thus examines the extent to which migrants transfer
rural poverty to urban areas considering the reciprocal relationships
of the migration poverty nexus and poverty levels of migrants and
indigenes in the Greater Accra Region
Description
School of social sciences colloquium
Keywords
migration, poverty, population growth, rural area