Internal Migration And Development

The report argues that internal migration can play an important role in poverty reduction and economic development; internal migration should therefore not be controlled or actively discouraged. Policy should instead concern itself with ways of maximizing the potential benefits of migration to the individual concerned and society at large. While there have been few formal efforts to estimate the economic contribution of migrant labour, it is evident that many developing countries would probably not have had the roads, buildings, manufacturing and trade centres that they have today had it not been for migration.

With a few exceptions, evidence suggests that internal population movements are growing. While there have been few formal efforts to estimate the economic contribution of migrant labour, this report argues that internal migration can play an important role in poverty reduction and economic development and should therefore not be controlled or actively discouraged.

The first text that specifically links both international and internal migration with development at a global level. The world is divided into a series of functionally integrated development zones which are identified, not simply on the basis of their level of development, but also through their spatial patterns and historical experience of migration. Migration and Development stresses the importance of migration in discussing regional, rather than simply country, differences. These variations in mobility are placed within the context of a global hierarchy, although regional, national and local cultural and social conditions are certainly not ignored in this wide-ranging work.

The focus and concern of Agrarian Change, Migration and Development is the problem of labour migraton. Veltmeyer and Wise explore the dynamics and development implications of the migration processes set in motion by the capitalist mode of production. The dynamics of these processes are both international -- in regard to the international or cross-border flows of labour migrants -- and internal to countries that have undergone, or are undergoing, a process of agrarian change and social transformation.Veltmeyer and Wise examine what they call the "migration-development nexus" from both a political economy and a sociological perspective, highlighting current trends, the global scale and the human dimension of the labour migration process, with particular reference to the increasing south-north flows of migrants who are forced to abandon their communities and ways of life by the globalizing forces of capitalist development.While it may appear that these migrants are free to choose to abandon their communities, and in many cases their families, in the search for greater economic opportunities and a better way of life, the authors show with devastating logic that the decisions made by so many migrants are rooted in the workings of the world capitalist system, which converts them into a pool of surplus labour to be pulled into and out of the system as required by capitalists in their endless search for private profit.

Internal Migration: A Comparative Perspective is the third in a series of publications sponsored by the Committee on Comparative Urban Economics. This book highlights the integral migration in several regions of the world and the problems in regions of varying levels of economic development, and with different economic systems. This text is organized into five parts encompassing 24 chapters. The introductory part describes the interactions between migration and socioeconomic development, along with the functions and dynamics of the migration process. The next part explores the methodological aspects of migration, including the models, measurements, and theoretical reflections of internal migration. Other parts discuss the effect of migration on regions and individuals. These chapters also present some case studies of internal migration in the West and Eastern Europe. The demographic effect of migration on an urban population, the ethnicity as a barrier to migration, and the influence of social and geographical mobility on the stability of kinship systems are reviewed. The concluding part relates a comparative disciplinary and systemic view of migration. This book will be of great value to economists, sociologists, and social workers.

Literature survey on migration policies relating to internal migration in developing countries - covers the effect of demographic aspects and economic conditions, and educational level on rural migration patterns, and analyses the impact of fertility level on urban development. References and statistical tables.