The Cause and Consequences of Rural Urban Migration

Book excerpt: Master's Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject Politics - Topic: Development Politics, , language: English, abstract: In developing countries like Ethiopia rural-urban migration affects socio-economic realities in both urban and rural areas. This study aims at identifying the major causes and consequences of the movement of people from rural to urban areas. To achieve the objective 282 migrant household heads were selected purposively from four Kebeles of the town. Both primary and secondary data were employed and were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively by using SPSS version 17th. Structured questionnaires and FGD were used on the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of migrant households. Most of the migrants move to the town alone. They had some information about the town and the decision of their migration is mostly made by themselves. However, most of them migrated decide to migrate not in planned way. A greater number of the migrants are young adults, males, and unmarried and had some form of education before they decided to migrate. There are many causes for the movement of the people to the town. Among them the search for job, to gain education and training, and problem related with land and agricultural productivity was the major one. Many of the migrants encountered problems at the initial period of adjustment and adaptation and even currently. In line with this, some useful points of recommendations for effective urban management and rural development activities are suggested.