Book Description

Discussing migration and migration patterns in the third world, this paper asserts that the failure of plans for controlling rural to urban migration is due to: lack of knowledge about the phenomenon; the favor given to one-dimensional interpretations stressing certain aspects of urban economies; and the implicit assumptions underlying most solutions offered which are rarely consistant with the socioeconomic contexts of the countries involved. Discussion centers on: the nature of migration and how to assess it (suggesting that two-ended assessment is necessary for a valid picture of migrants, the migrant is characterized as normally young, rational, economic, educated, job-seeking, encouraged to migrate by urban friends/family, and poor); what happens to migrants in urban areas (citing statistics on Botswana and Tanzania wage earners vs non-wage earners, including the self-employed, argument is presented relative to the dangers of generalizing migration statistics; e.g., in Tanzania, 67% of all urban adults are migrants, more than 77% of the wage-earners could be so classified, while only 62% of the non-wage earners are migrants); the solutions and the role of education (suggestions for eliminating urban unemployment generally include encouraging a decline in the rural-urban migration and/or via educational ruralization, vocational education, etc., restricting migration, while this study suggests that unless a radical change reduces rural-urban disparities, ruralizing education will either fail to stop the urban influx or succeed partially in legitimizing inequality of opportunity). (JC).