IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/faoaes/288948.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic development and the evolution of internal migration. Moving in steps, returnees, and gender differences

Author

Listed:
  • Cattaneo, Andrea
  • Robinson, Sherman

Abstract

This paper sheds new light on internal migration processes by estimating migration flows for 31 countries, focusing on step migration and on return migration back to rural areas from urban areas. The approach is to estimate the shares of the population (by gender) that move or stay in rural and urban areas over three periods (childhood and two forward periods). Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), the estimation was done with an information-theoretic procedure using maximum-entropy econometrics to estimate migration frequencies by population groups. Sizeable urban to rural migration flows are found, with rural returnees often contributing substantially to urban-to-rural flows. This phenomenon is more pronounced in countries in relatively early phases of development, and among male migrants. The analysis also confirms anecdotal evidence that migrants move in several steps and that internal migration patterns vary considerably according to gender; however, in countries that are further along the path of structural transformation, and particularly urbanization, the magnitude of migration flows appears to be similar across genders.

Suggested Citation

  • Cattaneo, Andrea & Robinson, Sherman, 2019. "Economic development and the evolution of internal migration. Moving in steps, returnees, and gender differences," ESA Working Papers 288948, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Agricultural Development Economics Division (ESA).
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:faoaes:288948
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.288948
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/288948/files/CA3359EN.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.288948?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
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labor and Human Capital; Community/Rural/Urban Development;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ags:faoaes:288948. 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: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/faoooit.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.