Rural Development and Rural-Urban Migration: The Elusive Relationship

Abstract

This paper recapitulates the debate over whether rural development policies can be expected to substantially reduce the rate at which people leave the countryside for the cities in developing countries. First, the evidence of household-level and aggregate migration studies is brought to bear on the issue. Contrary to conventional wisdom, cross-sectional migration studies in developing countries generally fail to support the idea that raising rural incomes will reliably reduce rural out-migration. A number of time-series and cross-national studies are found to offer some support for the potential of rural development to reduce rural-urban migration, but even these studies suggest that urban facturs dominate the flow of rural-urban migration. Specific rural development programs are also reviewed, which are often found to be as likely to stimulate as to inhibit rural out-migration.