Population, territory and sustainable development

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Table VIII.7
PANAMA: ESTIMATED IMPACT OF RURAL-URBAN MIGRATION ON THE AVERAGE EDUCATION
LEVEL OF HEADS OF HOUSEHOLD IN RURAL AND URBAN AREAS, 2005-2010
Habitual residence
Residence 5 years earlier
Urban Rural Total
Migration impact
(absolute)
Migration impact
(percentage)
Urban 10.82 9.70 10.77 -0.02370 -0.220021
Rural 9.41 5.81 5.93 -0.19984 -3.370751
Total 10.80 6.13 9.20
Source: Latin American and Caribbean Demographic Centre (CELADE) - Population Division of ECLAC, on the basis of
special processing of 2010 census microdata.
This deflator effect that rural migration has on the education level of the urban destination makes
it harder for labour markets, public services, social housing, facilities and even urban culture and
institutions to productively, efficiently and smoothly absorb immigrants from rural areas. This set of
complications underlies the negative reaction to such migration in urban areas, which is discussed in the
next section.
F. URBANIZATION, POVERTY AND URBAN DEFICIENCIES
Devoting a chapter to poverty and urban deficiencies does not imply a condemnation or negative view of
rural-urban migration. In fact, throughout the report the positive impacts of rural-urban migration have
been stressed, both for development at the country level (see sections B and C on how urbanization
contributes to progress and improved living standards in countries) and for the development of cities,
including its impacts on gender and age structure discussed above. And the focus has been on the
structural linkage between rural and urban areas in the region, in keeping with the approach taken by
other organizations in the United Nations system (UN-HABITAT, 2009; UNDP, 2009; World Bank,
2008; UNFPA, 2007). The gaps between rural and urban areas that shape the structural and historical
forces behind the rural exodus have been spotlighted, including significantly higher poverty indices and
sharply unequal allocation of production resources in the countryside (whether through the traditional
division of land ownership in large estates or modern agribusiness concentration).
But the precariousness of urbanization in the region cannot be ignored. It is analysed here from the
perspective of urban deficits, some of which originated in, were worsened by or became entrenched because
of the difficulties that cities in the region encountered in absorbing the rural exodus. Rural-urban migration
clearly is not responsible for these deficits, which instead stem from the lack of strategic urban policies,
market deregulation and dysfunction (especially the market for land) and the State’s weakness as a provider
of integrated public services. This section examines a set of deficits that characterize urbanization in the
region, while the next two chapters address other factors that contribute to the precariousness of
urbanization in the region: informality and mismanaged and unplanned peripheral expansion.
The idea of an urban housing deficit has recently been introduced to guide integrated urban policy
design (MINVU, 2009, pp. 13 and 14). However, urban deficits can range from general living conditions
to infrastructure, facilities, connectivity, institutions, civic participation and city management and
governance capacity. These deficits have accumulated as a result of two distinct factors: (i) a historical
inability to absorb productively, coherently and with dignity the rapid growth of the population, surface
area and activity of the cities, due to scarce and unequally allocated resources, weak urban institutions,