Agrarian Responses to Outmigration in Sub-Saharan Africa

Mabogunje, Akin L.

doi:10.2307/2807933

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 17 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…Unlike earlier studies that stressed social and demographic distortions caused by male migration and their consequences for families and reproduction in the context of uniformly favorable economic outcomes of migration (e.g., Mabogunje 1989; Timaeus and Graham 1989), our study highlights the effects of the deterioration of these outcomes in contemporary labor migration. The increasingly erratic and ever-diminishing returns to present-day migrant employment betray the hopes that continue to push scores of rural men, and increasingly rural women, into migration.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 71%

Men’s Migration and Women’s Fertility in Rural Mozambique

2011

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Labor migration profoundly affects households throughout rural Africa. This study looks at how men’s labor migration influences marital fertility in a context where such migration has been massive while its economic returns are increasingly uncertain. Using data from a survey of married women in southern Mozambique, we start with an event-history analysis of birth rates among women married to migrants and those married to nonmigrants. The model detects a lower birth rate among migrants’ wives, which tends to be partially compensated for by an increased birth rate upon cessation of migration. An analysis of women’s lifetime fertility shows that it decreases as the time spent in migration by their husbands accrues. When we compare reproductive intentions stated by respondents with migrant and nonmigrant husbands, we find that migrants’ wives are more likely to want another child regardless of the number of living children, but the difference is significant only for women who see migration as economically benefiting their households. Yet, such women are also significantly more likely to use modern contraception than other women. We interpret these results in light of the debate on enhancing versus disrupting effects of labor migration on families and households in contemporary developing settings.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 71%

Men’s Migration and Women’s Fertility in Rural Mozambique

2011

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“…Where outmigration of men leads to the creation of de facto female-headed households, there is potential for women's control over resources and decisions within households to increase. Such processes have been described in southern Africa (Timaeus and Graham 1989) and in southern Nigeria (Mabogunje 1989). However, David's multiplecountry study (1995) shows that the creation of female-headed households does not automatically lead to changing power relations.…”

Section: Kate Hampshirementioning

confidence: 98%

Flexibility in Domestic Organization and Seasonal Migration Among the Fulani of Northern Burkina Faso

Hampshire¹

2006

Africa

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Migration patterns among the Fulani of Burkina Faso have changed over recent decades from predominant transhumance, involving whole families, to seasonal rural-to-urban labour migration of young men. This article uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to examine the relationships between the new forms of migration and domestic organization. Specifically, it asks the following questions: (1) How do households accommodate the temporary loss of productive members? (2) Does the out-migration lead to new forms of domestic organization, and to changing roles and power relations within sending households? Various forms of flexibility in domestic organization are identified, which serve to maintain viable economic units in the face of the temporary absence of substantial numbers of young men. These include: flexibility in the processes of household division; rapid, temporary restructuring of domestic units; and drawing on extra-household support networks. One consequence of this flexibility is that intra-household gender divisions of labour and power have remained largely unchanged in the face of seasonal labour migration. The extent to which this will remain the case if migration becomes more widespread is uncertain.

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“…In contrast, the resource-poor and peripheral areas of Ghana and Kenya-i.e., most of northern Ghana and virtually all areas outside of Kenya's fertile central highlands-mainly served as cheap labor reserves and were generally starved of colonial government investments. As a result, these areas are still much less urbanized today (Mabogunje 1989).…”

Section: Colonial Urbanizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While seemingly different, both economic paths are similar because they put a premium on industrialization, provision of educational and health facilities to the masses and, extension of the country's transport and communications networks. Because the paths were inherently urban-biased, they reinforced these countries' spatially inequitable colonial economic and urban development patterns (Mabogunje 1989).…”

Section: Post-independence Urbanization: National and Global Periodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparative urbanization in Ghana and Kenya in time and space

Otiso

Owusu

2008

GeoJournal

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There are few inter-African country urban analyses because of the continent's enormous size and socioeconomic diversity, language barriers, and wide variations in national and regional urban research capacity. Nevertheless, comparative urban studies are critical in understanding contemporary African urbanization. In this comparative spatial and temporal analysis of Ghana and Kenya's urbanization, we find that both countries are urbanizing rapidly and are faced with many common urban problems. Moreover, Ghana is more urbanized than Kenya and has a larger indigenous urban imprint and a more widely dispersed urban pattern. Besides their physiographic and population conditions, we trace these countries' convergent and divergent urban trends to their shared but unique experiences of colonialism, nationalism and globalization.

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Agrarian Responses to Outmigration in Sub-Saharan Africa

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

Men’s Migration and Women’s Fertility in Rural Mozambique

Men’s Migration and Women’s Fertility in Rural Mozambique

Flexibility in Domestic Organization and Seasonal Migration Among the Fulani of Northern Burkina Faso

Comparative urbanization in Ghana and Kenya in time and space

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