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The Impacts of Mobile Phones and Personal Networks on Rural-to-Urban Migration: Evidence from Uganda

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  • Megumi Muto

Abstract

Personal networks can help rural workers find urban jobs. When information flow increases due to the expansion of mobile phone use, the new information flow may strengthen existing types of personal network, such as ethnic networks, or provide opportunities to those who were previously outside of these networks. We examine the combined impacts of mobile phone use and personal networks by using panel data from 856 households in 94 communities in rural Uganda, where the number of communities with mobile network coverage increased from 41 to 87 communities over a 2-year period between the first and second surveys, conducted in 2003 and 2005, respectively. We find first that the possession of mobile phone handsets at the household level increases an individual's chance of leaving his or her rural village to find a job, and second, that mobile phone use increases the chance that an individual will choose migration to a greater degree for individuals who belong to a smaller ethnic group than to a larger group in the capital city, Kampala. Copyright 2012 , Oxford University Press.

Suggested Citation

  • Megumi Muto, 2012. "The Impacts of Mobile Phones and Personal Networks on Rural-to-Urban Migration: Evidence from Uganda," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(5), pages -807, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:21:y:2012:i:5:p:-807
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    Cited by:

    1. Aimable Nsabimana & Patricia Funjika, 2019. "Mobile phone use, productivity and labour market in Tanzania," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-71, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    2. Luca Maria Pesando & Valentina Rotondi & Manuela Stranges & Ridhi Kashyap & Francesco C. Billari, 2021. "The Internetization of International Migration," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 47(1), pages 79-111, March.
    3. Malm, Meagan K. & Toyama, Kentaro, 2021. "The burdens and the benefits: Socio-economic impacts of mobile phone ownership in Tanzania," World Development Perspectives, Elsevier, vol. 21(C).
    4. Sekabira, Haruna & Qaim, Matin, 2016. "Mobile Phone Technologies, Agricultural Production Patterns, and Market access in Uganda," 2016 Fifth International Conference, September 23-26, 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia 246310, African Association of Agricultural Economists (AAAE).
    5. Xianzhe Zhang & Yanming Chen & Manchun Li, 2018. "Research on Geospatial Association of the Urban Agglomeration around the South China Sea Based on Marine Traffic Flow," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-19, September.
    6. Chiara, De Gasperin & Valentina, Rotondi & Luca, Stanca, 2019. "Mobile Money and the Labor Market: Evidence from Developing Countries," Working Papers 403, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Mar 2019.
    7. Ryan Hawthorne & Lukasz Grzybowski, 2019. "Benefits of Regulation vs. Competition Where Inequality Is High: The Case of Mobile Telephony in South Africa," CESifo Working Paper Series 7703, CESifo.
    8. Mothobi, Onkokame & Grzybowski, Lukasz, 2017. "Infrastructure deficiencies and adoption of mobile money in Sub-Saharan Africa," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 71-79.
    9. Krone Madlen & Dannenberg Peter, 2018. "Analysing the effects of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the integration of East African farmers in a value chain context," ZFW – Advances in Economic Geography, De Gruyter, vol. 62(1), pages 65-81, March.

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