IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ctl/louvde/v83y2017i1p13-30.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mortality, Migration, and Rural Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa’s Urban Transition

Author

Listed:
  • Sean FOX

    (University of Bristol, School of Geographical Sciences)

Abstract

The stylized facts of Africa's urban transition highlight the limitations of traditional economic models of urbanization. Recent research has provided evidence that demographic rather than economic processes provide a more compelling explanation for observed trends in the region. In particular, mortality decline appears to be both a necessary and sufficient condition for urbanization to occur and a key driver of urban growth more broadly. The accumulation of survey data over the past few decades and the development of new geospatial datasets that incorporate satellite imagery are facilitating new, more spatially nuanced insights into the dynamics of urban population change in the region. This offers opportunity to develop better policies for managing urban change than those adopted in the past, which placed a misguided emphasis on manipulating migration incentives with little evidence of positive benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean FOX, 2017. "Mortality, Migration, and Rural Transformation in Sub-Saharan Africa’s Urban Transition," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 83(1), pages 13-30, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:83:y:2017:i:1:p:13-30
    DOI: 10.1017/dem.2016.29
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1017/dem.2016.29
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1017/dem.2016.29?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Owen Crankshaw & Jacqueline Borel-Saladin, 2019. "Causes of urbanisation and counter-urbanisation in Zambia: Natural population increase or migration?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(10), pages 2005-2020, August.
    2. de la Croix, David & Gobbi, Paula E., 2022. "Population homeostasis in sub-Saharan Africa," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    3. Ilija Gubic & Oana Baloi, 2019. "Implementing the New Urban Agenda in Rwanda: Nation-Wide Public Space Initiatives," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 4(2), pages 223-236.
    4. James Duminy, 2023. "Critical Commentary: Beyond growth and density: Recentring the demographic drivers of urban health and risk in the global south," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(8), pages 1365-1376, June.
    5. Sean Fox & Robin Bloch & Jose Monroy, 2018. "Understanding the dynamics of Nigeria’s urban transition: A refutation of the ‘stalled urbanisation’ hypothesis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 55(5), pages 947-964, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ctl:louvde:v:83:y:2017:i:1:p:13-30. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sebastien SCHILLINGS (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iruclbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.