Who moves and who stays? Rural out-migration in Nigeria

Abstract

Data from the nationally representative 1993 Migration and Urbanization Survey of Nigeria are used to simultaneously examine the patterns of rural-rural and rural-urban migration in Nigeria. A multinomial logistic regression model predicts the independent and collective association between individual, household, and regional variables and migration from rural areas to rural and urban destinations. Associations between education, religion and ethnicity and migration propensities exist at the national level. The Kanuri-ShuaArabs are generally non-migrants, the Hausa-Fulani and Yoruba are predominantly rural-rural migrants and the Igbo-Ibibio and Urhobo-Isoko-Edo are predominantly ruralurban migrants. Christians are significantly more mobile than Muslims. While the highly educated are most likely to choose an urban destination, a significant proportion migrate to other rural areas. Concern over population concentration is not supported, as rural migrants move to all regions and to urban and rural areas.Keywords: Nigeria, rural out-migration, migration propensity, urbanization, agglomeration, spatial redistribution, even development, rural-rural migration, rural-urban migration Who moves to other rural or urban areas and who stays in rural Nigeria? What are the predictors? These questions address the long-standing concern among scholars, governments and international organizations regarding the determinants of population movements and the net redistribution of population (Abumere 1981; White and Lindstrom 2003). In sub-Saharan Africa, attention has focused on the relationships between migration, spatial redistribution, urbanization and development (Oucho and Gould 1993;Bilsborrow 1998;Oucho 1998;Guest 1998;Weinstein 2001;Black, King and Tiemoko 2003).Despite evidence that rural-urban migrants are not the largest group of internal migrants in sub-Saharan Africa, rural-urban movement, whether for circulation, temporary sojourns in towns or permanent urban residence, is the most significant form of movement for long-term spatial redistribution, and thus has attracted much study (Oucho 1998). In fact many planners, policy makers and governments see rural-urban migration as the overriding internal migration pattern in the region (Oucho and Gould 1993). The concentration of the urban populations of many devel- †

Understanding the dynamics of Nigeria’s urban transition: A refutation of the ‘stalled urbanisation’ hypothesis

“…Research on the characteristics of migrants in Nigeria specifically have been consistent with these broader findings in the empirical literature (Mberu 2005).…”

Capitalizing on Nigeria’s demographic dividend: reaping the benefits and diminishing the burdens

“…Addressing the needs of these increasing numbers of urban residents, including their access to food, housing, education, employment and services will be a major challenge for Nigeria’s government in the coming decades and will be critical in harnessing the benefits of her demographic dividend. Some of these new urban residents will be migrants from rural areas (Mberu 2005), so there will likely be additional challenges in integrating them into the cities, but many will be the children of current urbanites, as natural increase (fertility) is also contributing to urbanization. The characteristics of urban populations will be examined in turn in each of the following sections.…”

Migration and sexual behaviour among youth in Nairobi’s slum areas

“…African migration is mostly labour-motivated, with particularly young people moving into cities in search of economic opportunities (Townsend, 1997, NISER, 1997, Mberu, 2005. The downside however, is the growing evidence linking the high rate of youth migration to urban and economic centres in search of livelihood opportunities, in the context of persistent poverty, to increased sexual risk taking among young people (Isiugo-Abanihe and Oyediran, 2004, Adedimeji, 2005, Blanc and Way, 1998.…”