Internal migration and urbanization: Overview

Based on the survey data that the Beijing population research Institute conducted in 2008 and 2011 in Beijing, this study made a comparative research on fertility intention between floating population and local residents, with regard to ideal number of children, gender preference and influence factors. The research results show that both of floating population and local residents show low intentions in ideal number of children, low probability on having a second child and no son preference. Meanwhile, the study demonstrated that it is social-economic factor not family planning policy more influential on the childbearing behavior. And more and more families voluntarily choose bearing one-child. Based on the findings, this paper draws the conclusion that with rapid modernization and urbanization in China, the fertility intension has been greatly weakened and Chinese

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.

It appears to be migrants’ practical consideration to leave some family members back home, and, indeed, it is often conceptualized as a rational “household strategy” in academic literature. The purpose of the paper is to study why wives are left-behind at origin due to husbands’ out-migration. Primary data has been collected during January-March 2010 by undertaking a complete house listing of six villages of Pindra block of Varanasi, a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. Looking after household is one of the most pertinent grounds that prompt women to stay behind. This is a reason related to place of ‘origin’. The other reason stated by women is that there is no accommodation at the place where their husbands are working. So this is a reason related to place of ‘destination’. However, reason related to ‘origin’ stands apart from all other reasons.

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.

Empirical data and different studies reveal that after 1990’s, rural-urban had gained momentum. At the same time there are decreasing real wage rate, with higher unemployment rates in urban areas than in rural areas. Studies have argued that in-migrant labour may increase unemployment, lower the wages of low skilled local workers and also lead to an increase in wage inequality between the low paid and high paid workers. While others argued that the migrant labour don’t compete for same jobs, they provide cheap labour, bring about diversification of goods and services and bring in skill intensive technological change. There are studies in India which have attempted to address the issues, inter alia, such as factors determining migration; remittances and impact of migration on poverty, livelihood, health, inclusive growth. However, there has not been much studies that have looked at the impact of migrants on labour market, the plausible exception in this regard being the study by Sharma (1979) who have only focussed on the unemployment aspect. Given this broader context, this study would attempt to understand the socio-economic characteristics of migrant labour and non-migrant labour in a comparative perspective. The study will also try to examine the impact of migrants on employment and wage of local labourers.

This paper attempts to study the impact of remittance on household consumption in India. The household consumption demand function is derived by maximizing a joint utility function of households and their migrant members; which is further empirically estimated using the 2007–08 National Sample Survey (NSS) data by splitting the consumption expenditure into two major categories viz., food consumption and non-food consumption. The major findings suggest that receipt of remittances have positive impact on household consumption in rural and urban India. But, receipt of remittance has statistically significant negative impact on the budget share allocated to food consumption and positive impact on the budget share allocated to the non-food consumption in the rural India. And since major categories of non-food expenditure includes: educating household members, saving or investment, improving housing condition housing and repayment of debts etc.; remittance has developmental impacts in the rural sector. Hence, it is suggested that the government should facilitate both the transfer of remittances and their channeling to productive uses, by creating the conditions for a stable investment environment in the rural India.

The medium cities has been studied around the world, including Brazil, due to demographic and economic dynamism that showed, but also as the role they play in the organization of the territory of his country. The city of Sete Lagoas, Minas Gerais, an medium city, has developed very economically and demographically fast, especially in the last three decades. It’s a city that now occupies the top rank in Sete Lagoas Microregion composed of 20 municipalities. Using bibliographic research, systematic observations in fieldwork, spatial statistics and mapping of population exchanges intra-microregional periods of 1995-2000 and 2005-2010 was done an exploratory study that aimed to identify the influence of Sete Lagoas in his Microregion, provided the city average. This work was developed by the first two authors of this article as a basic requirement of Spatial Distribution of Population Discipline of Postgraduate Geography Programme – Spatial Information Processing, Pontifícia Universidade Católica of Minas Gerais, classed in the second half of 2012. In the end, it was found that the city of Sete Lagoas affects all municipalities in its Microregion, but in different ways.

Keywords: Sete Lagoas Microregion; Medium City; Population Exchanges.

India’s urban population increased over the period 2001-11 primarily on account of formation of 2,532 new census towns all over the country. Since a census town is a non-statutory town its investment needs for provision of public goods and services are not given the same importance as cities covered under the national mission. This has adverse implications for millions of dwellers in the cities not covered by the mission. This paper highlights five factors that will shape the well-being of city dwellers in India. First, will there be a concerted effort to tackle urbanization of poverty? Second, how will rising housing rents across the different cities be addressed? Third, housing rents will continue to increase since income elasticity of demand for rental housing is greater than one. Fourth, the redistribution of economic activities across rural-urban areas coupled with the absence of a robust economic base of most cities and towns of India will lead to an increase in number of workers commuting across rural-urban boundaries. Fifth, in light of lagging investments in Indian cites there are valid concerns that India will witness exclusionary urbanization.