- Farming improvements- In some areas, improved agricultural methods – for example, increased use of machinery has resulted in loss of jobs. In Malaysia, a scheme to improve efficiency in rice growing by using more machinery and technology has replaced the traditional labour. The new scheme is far more efficient and productive, but now thousands of workers and redundant and have no alternative but to move to the city to look for work.
Other push factors include:
- Lack of food – Migration from rural areas is necessary where the carrying capacity of the land is exceeded i.e. where there are too many people for the amount of food available, this results in too many people due to high natural growth rate or too little food due to a crop failure one particular year.
- Natural disasters – Farmers in certain areas of the world have a very insecure way of life due to the frequent and regular occurrence of natural disasters. For instance, in Bangladesh the River Ganges floods annually and there are often tropical cyclones. People may thus move to the city for a more secure way of life.
- Poor living conditions – In many rural areas housing is dilapidated (in very
poor conditions) and living conditions are also very cramped. There are few of the facilities that people in the MEDC’s take for granted, such as running water, electricity and sewage disposal systems.
- Social and welfare services – In most rural areas in LEDC’s there is a shortage of health care facilities, with few doctors. There may be a few primary schools but secondary schools are very rare. There are limited social facilities for the young and very poor communications to towns and cities.
Pull Factors.
(Factors that attract
migrants to the city.)
- Employment – Most cities in LEDC’s offer a greater range of employment opportunities than is available in the countryside. Most industries are situated in urban areas. Also, in the city, there are jobs available in the tertiary sector such as transport, retail and catering.
- Wages – The scale of rural-urban migration has been linked to wage differentials between towns and the countryside. Factory workers on average are said to earn three times as much as farm workers. In Tanzania, in East Africa, it was found that migration to the cities matched rising urban income.
- Better Life Style – People have a better life style and have better access to health care, education etc.
What Are The Effects Of Rural-Urban Migration?
Population movement on such a large scale affects both the countryside and the cities, in a variety of ways.
Negative effects of the countryside:
- Migrants are often the younger, more progressive and more enterprising workers. They are usually the most skilled and better-educated, in fact the very people the economy of the rural areas needs to help it to survive and develop.
- There are fewer farmers, so the supply of food for both towns and countries may decreases.
- Poverty increases and standards of living fall even further than before.
- There are fewer customers for rural services and shops so that they decline or close, creating further joblessness and making life harder for those whom remain.
Positive effects of the countryside:
- If it is mainly young people who migrate, the birth and natural growth rate will fall.
- With fewer mouths to feed, farmers do not need to work the land intensively.
- Migrants send back money to their family.
Rural-urban migration brings little benefit to the cities, but many drawbacks.
Positive effects on urban areas:
- Migrants provide a young, cheap source of unskilled labour for the industries and services activities.
Negative effects on urban areas:
- Many LEDC’s city authorities are unable to cope with the increase demand for housing, services and other facilities for the large number of in-migrants.
- As farmland is used up for shanty developments, food shortages can follow. For example Egypt now have to import food because of the loss of land taken up by the growth of Cairo.
- Large numbers of young people often increases the fertility, birth and growth rates of cities, which causes further increases in population and added pressure and strain on the urban services and developments.
Consequences For
The City and The Countryside.
Consequences For The City.
Favelas of Brazil, the bustees of Calcutta, the barrios of Bogota and Cairo’s ‘City of the Dead’. These squatter settlements are on eof the most serious consequences of rural-urban migration.
Squatter settlements arise because migrants arrive in the city hoping to find work. Without a job they are unable to find a place to live, so they settle where they can by building homes out of whatever they can find. Such settlements are usually found in the least desirable land, which are at the edges of a city. In Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro many of the favelas are built on steep hillsides which are vulnerable to landslides. This is the land that no one else wants, so illegal settlers are able to occupy it, but at greater risk to their lives and their property. Other problems that the city experiences as they grow include the increase of air pollution as the city expands, growing traffic congestion, higher rates of infant mortality and ill health, particularly breathing problems.
Consequences For The Countryside.
Many families hope that when someone goes to the city she/he will send money back to the village. In theory rural areas should benefit from this, but in reality migrants are often unable to send money back home, but where it does happen rural dwellers become independent on these payments and then take action themselves to improve their quality of life. Rural areas may benefit from the fact that much migration is seasonal and the young migrants return to land in the busy season. The migrants do not only provide additional labour but also bring back with them innovative ideas that they have picked up in the city.
Shanty Towns
In Durban, (South Africa)
People build shantytowns also called Favela’s if they cannot afford to buy a house or if there is no room for them to live. Shantytowns have a number of problems and they are:
- No electricity supply, and bottled gas is expensive
- Clean water is only available from stand pipes which have to supply hundreds of people
- Sewage and pit latrines are inadequate
- The houses are built cheaply and often let in rain
- It is difficult to maintain hygiene without a proper water supply and sanitation system.
Durban is a large port city in South Africa on the coast of Natal next to the Indian Ocean. More than half of the population of the city is very poor and lives in shantytowns. Durban, like other Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDC’s) of the world, is experiencing rapid growth of shanty towns (informal settlements) and these are built on any patch of available land within or close to the city.
Rural-urban Migration in China
Between 1990 and 1995 China’s urban population grew by 4.0%. 35% of the population currently live in urban centres - –his figure has almost doubled in the last 20 years. The scale of movement from China’s countryside to it’s cities is currently the largest and most significant in the world. It started in 1984 when the government started to allow people to move freely within the country. Beijing and Shanghai are popular destinations. The population of Beijing increased by 17% between 1982 and 1990. Beijing now has 25-satellite towns. Shanghai grew by 12.5% between 1982 and 1990, and now in-migrants make up around 20% of its total population.
The migrants are usually the young men who go to work in the new heavy construction industries and young women finding jobs in service industries. The conditions may not be perfect but are usually better than in rural areas.
People are migrating because there has been a decrease in the amount of available farmland. The population in China is still growing, so there is increasing pressure on the land. Farm units are very small, often less than one hectare, and too small to grow enough to feed a farmer and his family. Another reason for migration is that housing conditions and services are also very poor in rural areas. The pull factors are basically increased employment opportunities in towns and cities, higher wages, better standard of living and lifestyle. A particular pull factor is government encouragement in industrial development in Special Economic Zones around such cities as Shanghai and Hong Kong. Several million jobs are being created in each year in the construction, manufacturing and service industries.
Rural-urban Migration in Peru.
Peru is about four times the size of the UK, with less than half the population. It is divided into the three geographical zones:
- A coastal lowland desert strip where its capital, Lima is situated (10% of total area)
- An interior mountainous zone (30%)
- A tropical rainforested lowland area which is part of the Amazon Basin (60%)
There are large differences between the standards of living and lifestyle of people living in the capital and the rest of the country. Large-scale migration has taken place from the countryside to Lima, one-third of whose 8 million people are migrants. Most migrants are younger, better-educated villagers from the mountainous area.
Most people are migrating because much of Peru is difficult to farm and develop because only 5% of Peru is made up of fertile farmland, 15% is too cold to grow crops, 10% is too dry and 30% has steep slopes with thin, infertile soil. Another reason is that houses are made of adobe (mud bricks) and are very small and basic, many mountain villages have no water and electricity supply, no sewage disposal systems, and no roads. Also education is limited to primary schooling and secondary schools are very rare. The country has many natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods droughts etc. The pull factors are that Lima’s social and welfare services are much better in the city, life expectancy is 10 years longer in Lima also schooling is twice as long and there is better access to higher education in the city. Lima also has a university.
Rural-urban Migration in Bangkok
Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, had a population of 2 million in 1960 by 1990 there were 7 million people living there. The population of Mexico City has increased by 5 million in the last 10 years alone. While in Lagos in Nigeria, with a population of 8 million, is growing at a rate of 10% per year – an extra 2,000 people per day.
So far rural-urban migration has been more significant in the Middle East and Asia, where there are stronger urban traditions, and in Latin America, where colonial influences have developed major urban centres. Until recently it has been less significant in most of Africa.