World Development Report 1984

from rural to urban areas mainly reflects the proc- source of innovation, but only if opportunities
ess of industrialization and the changes it brings in exist to exploit their ideas. Studies in Guatemala,
the demand for labor. Certain conditions in rural Papua New Guinea, Peru, and Tanzania, for examareas-unequal
land distribution, landlessness, ple, have shown that returning migrants can introagricultural
mechanization, natural calamities, duce new crops and techniques. Other studies
and, in the past, forced labor migrations-have have found that experience gained in modern facstrongly
influenced population movements in tories is largely irrelevant to the needs of small
many countries. But, by and large, people move to villages.
towns and cities for higher incomes and better job
opportunities. Redistribution policies
For individual families, these attractions can be
considerable. Once in the city, perhaps three out of Governments have employed many different
four migrants make economic gains. A move from approaches to the task of slowing down ruralthe
rural Northeast of Brazil to Rio de Janeiro, for urban migration, ranging from direct controls on
example, can roughly triple the income of an population mobility to efforts to improve economic
unskilled worker; the family income of a manual conditions in the countryside. Few of these polilaborer
in Sao Paulo is almost five times that of a cies have achieved their demographic objectives,
farm laborer in the Northeast. The higher cost of and their social and financial costs have been high.
urban living may narrow rural-urban wage differ- Moreover, they have often been undermined by
entials in real terms, but urban dwellers also gen- national policies in agriculture, industry, and forerally
have much better access to basic public eign trade.
services. To take one example, in rural areas of Direct controls on mobility have been most comsub-Saharan
Africa only about 10 percent of the mon in centrally planned economies. China, for
population has access to a safe water supply, com- example, has employed controls since the early
pared with 66 percent of the urban population. 1950s in an attempt to stabilize its urban popula-
Most studies conclude that migrants are assets to tion. These controls have taken the form of travel
the urban economy. They are mostly between the permits and food ration cards that can be used
ages of fifteen and twenty-nine and are better edu- only in specified areas; also, restrictions have been
cated and more motivated than those who stay placed on labor recruitment in rural areas by urban
behind in the countryside. Evidence from Brazil, industrial enterprises. In some cases large num-
Colombia, Kenya, Korea, India, and Malaysia bers of city dwellers have been exhorted to move
shows that migrants with long urban residence to the countryside. The "rustication" program, for
compare favorably with urban-born people in instance, resettled some 10 to 15 million urban secterms
of employment and income. A World Bank ondary school graduates in rural areas between
study of Bogota, Colombia, found that migrants 1969 and 1973. Administrative measures have
earned more than nonmigrants at all educational probably helped to slow urban population growth:
levels. Overall, income and employment levels are the proportion of the population in urban areas
more a function of age, sex, and education than of has changed only slightly over the past thirty
whether a person has migrated or not. years. But the costs were high to individuals, and
Evidence about the impact on rural areas of emi- the economy also suffered from misallocations of
gration is mixed. Emigration seldom causes a drop labor.
in farm output. In villages of East Kalimantan, Less stringent controls have been used in Indo-
Indonesia, for instance, women have adjusted to nesia and in the Philippines. Starting in 1970,
the departure of male emigrants by working migrants to Jakarta had to comply with an array of
harder at rice and vegetable production. Other bureaucratic requirements, including cash
reactions include shifts to less labor intensive crop- deposits and licenses for various business activiping
patterns, increased use of wage labor, and ties, however informal. To limit the growth of
agricultural mechanization. Manila, the city government in 1963 decided to
Urban-rural remittances clearly benefit rural charge migrants a sizable fee to enter the public
households. Village studies in India, Malawi, and school system; free education was available only to
Thailand, however, show that net remittances- bona fide residents. In both cases, the controls
migrants receive as well as send money-usually proved hard to enforce, gave rise to petty corrupaccount
for only a small proportion of rural tion, and failed to slow urban growth significantly.
incomes. Returning migrants can be an important A variant of such controls has been periodic expul-
98