Internal migration and urbanization: Are patterns changing? (1)

Internal migration has made a significant contribution in unequal distribution of population in Sri Lanka for many decades. The direction, pattern and volume of migration have been influenced by a number of socioeconomic and political forces. The recent patterns and determinants of inter-district migration have not been adequately examined due to 30 years cvil war in the Northern and Eastern part of the country. This paper analyzes the recent dynamics of internal migration and associatrd reasons. the analysis uses data from the 2012 Sri Lankan Population and Housing census. The results indicate that the growth of internal migrants has been increasing in non-traditional migrant receiving locations in districts of Northern and Eastern provinces, and Hambantota district in the Southern Province. The former is driven by the resettlement and relocation programmes for the internally displaced populations while latter is lead by economic and infrastructure development projects. Additionally, traditional urban districts, Colombo and Gempaha still remain as employment and education related migration destinations . Marriage and other reasons are also important. Results suggest that future policies should focus on identifying strategies to ensure better quality of life for migrants particularly those in non-traditional locations

The main objective of this study which was initiated in January 2005 is to explore the levels of knowledge about reproductive health issues of young women migrant workers and attitudes and behaviours that put them at risk for sexually transmitted infections or HIV transmission or unwanted pregnancies. Data was collected through a pre-tested questionnaire from a random sample of unmarried female migrant workers under 30 years of age residing in Delhi, India. Findings suggest that city life, greater independence and social networks mold their behaviour and lure them to lavish life styles by having rich boy friends, acquiring expensive items like, mobile, home theatre, computer, luxury car, visiting expensive restaurants, going to discos, clubs, and bars, attending late night parties. To maintain their lavish life style, 20 percent of them had sex with their peers, colleagues or boss for monetary benefits or in exchange of promotion and 10 percent had sex with multiple partners. The high risk behaviour of these women put them at greater health risk, a substantial percentage of women have been found suffering from various sexual health problems.

In this paper, we study the impact of changing trend of internal migration away from cities along with the exclusionary and unwelcoming nature of cities on the mobility of workers. We show that in the light of these changing trends, where cities are becoming unaffordable (because of costly housing facilities and higher cost of living), and individuals opt to commute to urban areas for work to optimize their income along with affordable housing and basic amenities in the rural and peri-urban areas on the outskirts of the cities. Using the latest nationally representative survey on employment and unemployment 2009-10, we show that higher urbanization, labor market factors (job availability, wages etc.) along with the location of jobs (agglomeration of industries and services) affects the decision of a worker to become a commuter. We find that higher urban and peri-urban population in a region causes higher commuting of workers from rural to urban areas due to better connectivity and more job opportunities in these areas as compared to their rural counterparts. The spatial clusters of manufacturing jobs in rural as well as urban areas lead to higher commuting , both ways- urban to rural, rural to urban. On the other hand, service sector jobs concentrated in urban areas attract workers to commute from rural to urban areas.

The new generation of migrant workers, who is currently in the key stage of adapting to flow-in area, has become a social group that cannot be ignored in China cities. This paper aims at finding out the social adaption situation of the new generation of migrant workers in China’s urbanization progress,.
The data is from New Generation of Migrant Workers Research (2011) conduced in January 2011. The research studies 1201 migrant workers from 24 provinces or cities in China by questionnaire and in-depth interview.
To establish the social adaption level, the author set the index of social adaption with the new generation migrant workers. The index system includes three classes, which is about 5 points: assimilation ability, identity recognition, social acceptation, fairness of adaption, and home-leaving.According to the research, Chinese new generation migrant workers have reached 51% overall. In the aspect of self-evaluation, with the situation of leaving-hometown and the fairness of adaption is higher, while the assimilation ability and identity recognition level is lower, self-recognition element of social acceptation is medium. Select personal characteristics, family characteristics, as well as social capital & human capital as the three different variables to explore the influences according to Logistic Regression.

Of late, there has been a change in the thinking of policy makers about urbanization in India. The Eleventh Five Year Plan (2007-12) argued that urbanisation should be seen as a positive factor as urban areas contributes to about 65 percent of the GDP. As India has entered into the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-2017), the urban transition is considered as a major challenge requiring a massive expansion in the urban infrastructure and services. Under this backdrop, the results of the 2011 census assume enormous significance in enhancing our understanding about the magnitude, growth and inter-state variations in the levels and tempo of urbanization. Urbanisation has increased faster than expected as per 2011 Census. This has reversed the declining speed of urbanisation during 1980s and 1990s. Also, for the first time since independence, the absolute increase in urban population was higher than rural population. This paper attempts to study the trend, pattern and components of urban population growth namely the contribution of natural increase, rural to urban classification and migration in the light of 2011 Census results.

This present article discusses the complexity of the dynamics of migration in a large urban agglomeration. This complexity can be seen both in the different types of movements involved, as well as in the individual and collective characteristics of the migrants themselves. Data from a recent household survey taken in 2007 was used to analyze the spatial mobility of the population on the basis of distinct spatial delimitations and on information taken from the Brazilian demographic censuses. The author analyzes the characteristics of residential mobility (and of the individuals involved) in view of several different factors. He also presents considerations on the possible impacts and consequences of these factors in the socio-spatial dynamics of an important Brazilian metropolitan region, that of Campinas, in the State of São Paulo.

We use data from the 2009 World Urbanization Prospects database and other sources to estimate trends in the number, distribution, and movement of Chinese cities and centroids since 1950. China’s cities have witnessed a rapid growth with a difference between coastal cities and inland ones. China’s cities tend to be more evenly distributed after 1980 and that larger cities are more evenly distributed than smaller cities. The distance of the geographic centroids for Chinese cities between 1950 and 2009 was within 100km, whereas the population centroid of cities moved by 340km southwestward during this period and the economic centroid (i.e., GDP of cities) moved southward by 200-360km from 1985 to 2005 followed by an eastward movement from 2005 to 2009, reflecting a retreat of migrants from south China due to the recent global economic crisis. However, the trajectory of centroid of social welfare of cities lies 120-230km west of the economic centroid trajectory and 50-150km west of the population centroid trajectory from 1985 to 2009, indicating that social welfare development in cities is behind urbanization and economic growth in contemporary China, which places a challenge for improvement of quality of life for urban residents in China.

Urbanization has greatly altered the distribution of world’s cities. We use the 2011 Revision of the World Urbanization Prospects, the largest time series city database with most consistent definition, to investigate growth trajectories of world’s cities by major area and city size from 1950 to 2010. We found that while the number of cities has been mushrooming from all corners of the world, the greatest number of cities and the largest cities today are increasingly found in the developing world. Trends in evenness of distribution of city by country are also examined. Cities in developing countries have witnessed a faster growth in latest few decades compared to those of developed countries. Larger cities tended to have a universally greater growth rate than smaller-sized cities for six major areas and selected countries. Population of world cities is getting less evenly distributed in terms of the Pareto coefficient. Japan is a developed country with least evenly distributed population in terms of the Pareto coefficient and primacy indexes. With exception for China and India, cities in developing countries tend to less evenly distributed than cities in most developed countries.

The main objective of this paper is to study the spatial pattern and levels of inter-state migration and to understand how regional disparities in development influences inter-state migration pattern in India. This study is based on 1991 and 2001 census migration data. In this analysis, two rates namely in-migration and out-migration rates have been computed separately for both males and females. Statistical method of correlation and regression has been used to find the linkage between regional disparities in development and migration. It shows that people mainly moved to the states which have witnessed higher growth rates of urbanization and achieved higher economic development compared to the states where employment opportunities are less. However, there are also some states which are showing significant in-migration as well as out-migration. The decadal growth rate of migration has increased during the period 1991 to 2001. Another important finding is that the overall sex ratio of migrants has reversed favouring males during the last decade. While there is a negative relationship between rate of in-migration and poverty, the volume of in migration is positively correlated with development.

This study will focus on Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) in which causes and consequences of rapid urbanization. Failure of government’s policy towards regional development along with rural development, and lack of federal law to control inter-state migration, will be investigated. It is a major cause behind mass migration and inter-state disputes such as socio-cultural and linguistic conflicts. It is quite essential to mention here that MMR is facing a major challenge due to conflict between local people and migrant population. This may lead to civil riots, as many local political parties are gaining support on these issues. MMR also needs lots of resources from its neighboring states to sustain itself. This study is more contemporary and relevant because MMR is a diverse inter cultural population, trying to fit in small space (within 4355sq km of MMR).Growing population and diverse identification have divided the people into different interest groups in the Mumbai. It is essential to find out the root causes and solutions of this in order to protect the national identity and federal democratic structure of the nation.