Migration in cities of the global South: drivers, interactions and socio-demographic consequences

Project Information

MIC

Grant agreement ID: 950065

DOI

10.3030/950065

EC signature date 9 April 2021

Start date 1 July 2021

End date 30 June 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 499 127,00

EU contribution

€ 1 499 127,00

Coordinated by

ECOLE POLYTECHNIQUE FEDERALE DE LAUSANNE
Switzerland

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - MIC (Migration in cities of the global South: drivers, interactions and socio-demographic consequences)

Reporting period: 2024-07-01 to 2025-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Large scale migration from the countryside towards cities and the associated urbanization of populations in developing countries constitute an opportunity but also a risk for human development. In either case, urbanization may lead to increased international migration. However, our understanding of these two phenomena is limited by a lack of evidence on subnational differences in migration within and between countries. These internal and international flows are traditionally analyzed separately from each other. MIC offers estimates for internal and international migration in more than 1300 distinct cities and 7000 rural settlements spanning all developing regions. We also assess the factors affecting the intensity and geography of migration, and we study the socio-demographic consequences of these flows for human development in cities and rural settlements.

We address three research questions. In project A, we explore how internal and international migrations evolve over time in different urban contexts and population subgroups defined by sex, age and the level of education. In project B, we examine why the trends differ across these contexts. In project C, we investigate how migration shapes the composition of city populations according to age and educational attainment.

MIC is innovative in its global and comparative perspective on migration among urban agglomerations. Each of the three sub-projects has the potential for innovative results that are highly policy relevant. Projects A & B will provide information on where and why we should expect increased international migration in rapidly urbanizing developing countries, and how this relates to the movements within countries. Project C identifies the consequences of migration for the processes of urbanization and human development in cities. MIC will help governments to tailor their existing migration and development policies, to maximize the development impact of migration, and to make cities more sustainable.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We have harmonized over time the country-specific geographic information on migration available in International Public Use Microdata Samples of population censuses (compiled by the University of Minnesota Population Center) and have defined the geographic extents of urban agglomerations using remote sensing data (from Eurostat’s Global Human Satellite Layer). We have also measured the three components of human development – health, education, and material wealth – in distinct cities and rural settlements, developed a multi-dimensional definition of the hierarchy of cities, and tested methodological tools for comparative analysis of internal and international migration flows. Our harmonized database includes individual-level information on 290 million inhabitants living in more than 1300 urban agglomerations and 7500 rural areas in 41 countries located in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbeans.

We have analyzed how migration among and between cities and rural settlements diffuses over time and across space. The insights reveal that migration from rural to urban areas first increases, then decreases and ultimately rises again as countries urbanize over time. Inhabitants of cities play a major role in the initiation of migratory behavior in low-urbanized countries and dominate population mobility again in highly urbanized settings. Intermediate-sized and small cities constitute increasingly attractive migrant destinations over time. We have also studied how human development motivates out-migration from cities, as well as how these movements influence the inequalities between cities in terms of the share of highly educated in their populations. Preliminary results indicate that improvements in population health and education are more important drivers of urban out-migration than progress in material living standard. Internal migrants have a limited impact on human capital in cities because the intensity of in- and out-flows, as well as the educational profiles of the respective migrants, are similar to one and another, albeit with some variations across the hierarchy of cities.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project advances the fields of urban demography and urban studies by its unprecedented geographic and temporal scope, and by relying on internationally consistent definitions of urban agglomerations. This enables robust and quantitative comparisons of the dynamics of migration among and between cities and rural areas over time.

Our analyzes uniquely contribute to the existing knowledge by considering different types of flows across the rural-urban continuum of settlements. Previous studies relied on dichotomous classifications of places (e.g. urban versus rural) and neglected the importance of migratory movements between cities. The newly developed multi-dimensional urban typology of settlements also improves the ranking of cities when compared to previous work that relied only on population size.

The consideration of different components of human development as drivers of migration at the subnational scale enriches our understanding of the phenomenon. Previous studies only compared how the role of economic development on migration varies between countries. Moreover, the analysis of the consequences of internal migration for the composition of populations according to educational attainment offers new subnational evidence on the losses or gains in human capital of distinct cities. This so-called brain-drain or brain-gain has so far been investigated only at the country level with reference to international migration flows.

By the end of this project, we expect path-breaking evidence on the differences between cities in terms of international migration trends over the process of urbanization, as well as on how these trends relate to the patterns of migration within countries. We also expect new insights on the developmental drivers and consequences of these two flows in different tiers of the city hierarchy and the rural-urban continuum of space.

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