Fertility adaptation by rural-urban migrants in developing countries: The case of Korea

Summary The purpose of this study is to develop and test a model to assess the influence of rural-urban migration on fertility in less developed countries. Two major reasons may account for lower fertility levels observed among such migrants than among women who remained in rural areas: a selection effect, and adaptation to constraints in the area of destination. Results of previous studies have only rarely suggested that the effect of adaptation was significant. We use the detailed personal migration and pregnancy histories recorded in the Korean World Fertility Survey of 1974 and an autoregressive model to control for unobservable variations in personal preferences for different family sizes between migrants and non-migrants. Our study provides evidence that adaptation following rural-urban migration is a significant factor which explains the lower fertility of rural-urban migrants compared with that of rural stayers.     

中国人口迁移与生育率关系研究

本文利用2000年人口普查数据,考察了中国人口迁移与生育率的关系。通过比较农村本地人口、城市本地人口和流动迁移人口三个人口群体在生育率上的差异,并进行多元统计分析,结果表明,流动迁移对生育率有着非常显著影响,城市外来人口的生育率不仅显著低于农村本地人口,而且也低于城市本地人口;远期流迁人口的生育率要低于近期流迁人口的生育率。中国人口迁移与生育率的关系出现了与已有的迁移生育率理论的不一致。1990年代中国的迁移生育率发生了转变。     

Urbanization and the fertility transition in Ghana

This paper examines the way in which migration and urban residence operate to alter fertility outcomes. While urban-rural fertility differentials have long been established for most developing societies, the nature of these differences among migrants and between migrants and those of succeeding generations is not well understood. The evidence presented here suggests that rural-urban migration and urbanization may contribute positively to processes of fertility transition. Using data from the 1998 Kumasi Peri-Urban Survey, which included a 5-year retrospective monthly calendar of childbearing, we suggest that migrants adapt quickly to an urban environment. Our results also reveal generational differences in recent and cumulative fertility. While migrants exhibit higher cumulative fertility than urban residents of the second and third generation, their fertility is significantly lower than rural averages in Ghana. Children of migrants exhibit childbearing patterns quite similar to those in higher-order generations. Most noteworthy is the nature of the disparities in childbearing patterns between migrants and the succeeding generations. Migrant women have higher lifetime fertility than urban natives. Migrant women also exhibit higher fertility over the last 5 years than second generation or high-order urban natives. But these first generation women exhibit lower fertility (vs. urban natives) for the year immediately prior to the survey. These patterns lend support to an interpretation that combines rather than opposes theories of selectivity, disruption, adaptation and socialization. We conclude by discussing mechanisms that might explain these interrelated processes of fertility adjustment and suggest that policies discouraging rural-urban migration need to be revisited.     

Urbanization and fertility: An event-history analysis of Coastal Ghana

In this article, we undertake an event-history analysis of fertility in Ghana. We exploit detailed life history calendar data to conduct a more refined and definitive analysis of the relationship among personal traits, urban residence, and fertility. Although urbanization is generally associated with lower fertility in developing countries, inferences in most studies have been hampered by a lack of information about the timing of residence in relationship to childbearing. We find that the effect of urbanization itself is strong, evident, and complex, and persists after we control for the effects of age, cohort, union status, and education. Our discrete-time event-history analysis shows that urban women exhibit fertility rates that are, on average, 11% lower than those of rural women, but the effects vary by parity. Differences in urban population traits would augment the effects of urban adaptation itself. Extensions of the analysis point to the operation of a selection effect in rural-to-urban mobility but provide limited evidence for disruption effects. The possibility of further selection of urbanward migrants on unmeasured traits remains. The analysis also demonstrates the utility of an annual life history calendar for collecting such data in the field.     

乡-城转移人口的生育率水平问题

乡一城人口转移作为城市化过程,总体上有利于生育率下降或低生育水平的稳定。但是,由于乡一城转移人口的生育率水平具有既不同于城也有别于乡的差别特征,因此这种转移对城乡生育率的变化必然产生一定的差别效应。通常认为,乡一城转移人口的生育率水平介于城乡之间,即低于乡而高于城。但是,有关研究认为,我国乡一城迁移流动人口的生育率水平已经转变为低于城市。对此,很值得进一步深入探讨。本文首先分析我国城乡生育率的变化和区域差异,然后对乡一城转移人口的总和生育率进行尝试性的推算,最后聚焦讨论流动人口生育行为的流动性问题。     

Interrelations between migration and fertility in Thailand

Based on special tabulations of 1960 census data on migration within Thailand, this analysis attempts to assess the role of migration in the urbanization process and the relation between migration and fertility. The importance of migration to urban growth is evidenced by the clearcut positive relationship between the percentage of persons classified as either lifetime or 5-year migrants and the urban character of their 1960 place of residence. Yet, the evidence also points to an increasing proportion of urban growth in recent decades attributable to natural increase. The specific relation between fertility and migration varies depending on the measure of migration used: Compared to nonmigrants in their place of destination, the fertility levels of lifetime migrants are not very different; but those of 5-year migrants are considerably lower. Regardless of migration status, however, fertility level is markedly lower for those living in urban places compared to those in rural places. This suggests the important role of both migration and urbanization in affecting fertility levels in Thailand.     

Rural-Urban Migration and Reproductive Behavior in Guatemala

Guatemala has the highest fertility of any country in Latin America, and it is also the least urbanized. Projected rural-urban migration will shift more of Guatemala's population from rural areas into towns and cities. This article uses retrospective life-history data collected in migrant origin and destination areas in Guatemala to compare the fertility of rural-urban migrant women to that of rural and urban nonmigrants. Results from discrete-time hazard regression models of union formation, first birth, and third and higher parity births indicate that delayed marriage while still in rural areas, and the rapid adoption of urban fertility practices after migration, result in intermediate migrant fertility that is closer to that of urban natives than rural nonmigrants. If current patterns are any guide to the future, the redistribution of population from high fertility rural areas to towns and cities in Guatemala will accelerate the decline in aggregate fertility beyond what would have resulted from declines in rural and urban fertility alone.     

Effects of migration on the educational levels of the black resident population at the origin and destination, 1955–1960 and 1965–1970

Using the 1960 and 1970 census data, this paper analyzes the net effects of the interregional migration of black males on the educational levels of the resident black male population at the regions of origin and destination. Significant variations are observed in the educational selectivity of out-migrants from each region, by region of destination. Comparing the educational levels of the return migrants to the South with those of the resident population in the nonsouthern regions provides no evidence that the return migrants are "failed" migrants. The net effect of interregional migration on the educational levels of the black male resident population at the regions of origin and destination is insignificant in most age groups, for both the 1955--1960 and 1965--1970 periods. In particular, in-migration from the South to nonsouthern regions has little effect on the educational levels of the resident population in most age groups. In fact, for nonsouthern regions, out-migration is more detrimental to the educational level of the resident black male population than is in-migration from the South. Furthermore, the net effect of interregional migration has declined from the 1955--1960 period to the 1965--1970 period.     

Health Selection,Migration, and HIV Infection in Malawi

Despite its importance in studies of migrant health, selectivity of migrants—also known as migration health selection—has seldom been examined in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). This neglect is problematic because several features of the context in which migration occurs in SSA—very high levels of HIV, in particular—differ from contextual features in regions that have been studied more thoroughly. To address this important gap, we use longitudinal panel data from Malawi to examine whether migrants differ from nonmigrants in pre-migration health, assessed via SF-12 measures of mental and physical health. In addition to overall health selection, we focus on three more-specific factors that may affect the relationship between migration and health: (1) whether migration health selection differs by destination (rural-rural, rural-town, and rural-urban), (2) whether HIV infection moderates the relationship between migration and health, and (3) whether circular migrants differ in pre-migration health status. We find evidence of the healthy migrant phenomenon in Malawi, where physically healthier individuals are more likely to move. This relationship varies by migration destination, with healthier rural migrants moving to urban and other rural areas. We also find interactions between HIV-infected status and health: HIV-infected women moving to cities are physically healthier than their nonmigrant counterparts.     

Migration, fertility, and state policy in Hubei Province, China

Despite China s one-child family planning policy, the nation experienced a slight rise in the birth rate in the mid-1980s. Many observers attributed this rise to the heightened fertility of those rural-to-urban migrants who moved without a change in registration (temporary migrants), presumably to avoid the surveillance of family planning programs at origin and destination. Using a sequential logit analysis with life-history data from a 1988 survey of Hubei Province, we test this possibility by comparing nonmigrants, permanent migrants, and temporary migrants. While changing family planning policies have a strong impact on timing of first birth and on the likelihood of higher-order births, migrants generally do not have more children than nonmigrants. In fact, migration tends to lower the propensity to have a child. More specifically, the fertility of temporary migrants does not differ significantly from that of other women.     

In-migration,customary land tenure,and complexity: exploring the relationship between changing land tenure norms and differentiated migrant livelihoods in Brong Ahafo,Ghana

This article focuses on the relationship between in-migration from Northern Ghana and changing land tenure norms in Ghana’s central “transition zone” in Brong Ahafo Region. Using the complex adaptive systems (CAS) theoretical framework, it theorizes this relationship as part of a wider set of “co-evolving” social and environmental conditions across Brong Ahafo. It presents new qualitative research findings which show differentiated livelihood trajectories for Northern Ghanaian migrant farmers in Brong Ahafo in three case study sites in different districts and links these to migrants’ diverse land tenure arrangements under customary tenure regimes in Brong Ahafo. I argue that differentiated outcomes for migrants at rural destinations have implications for the extent to which out-migration from environmentally marginal regions such as Northern Ghana can be viewed as a form of “adaptation” to environmental change.     

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

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-Shua Arabs 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.     

Migrant-native socioeconomic differentials in Thailand

Recent research has suggested that the position of many urban migrants compares favorably with that of urban natives. This generalization is refined by referring to three key distinctions: migrants from rural versus urban origins, recent versus more experienced cityward migrants, and type of urban destination. In Thailand in the early 1970s, migrants to smaller urban centers, especially the more experienced migrants, are economically more successful than migrants to the large metropolitan centers and in some cases are more successful than urban natives. Reasons for this pattern are discussed.     

The fertility of two-generation urbanites

In this paper it is argued that in studies of urban fertility, the relationship between socio-economic variables and fertility has been obscured by the presence of rural migrants in the populations under investigation. Accordingly, data obtained from families of completed fertility in six probability samples of metropolitan Detroit are divided into two groups, farm migrants and two-generation urbanites.

In general, the socio-economic differences in fertility observed among the “pure” urban types in Detroit are found to be small and inconsistent, most of them being statistically insignificant. The inverse fertility pattern found in the total Detroit population is attributed to : (a) the overrepresentation of farm migrants (who have high fertility) in the lowest social and economic positions in the city, and (b) the pronounced inverse pattern of fertility among the farm migrants.

It is suggested that the absence of an inverse fertility pattern among twogeneration urbanites and its presence among the farm migrants can be attributed to differences in family organization.     

Tracking rural-to-urban migration in China: Lessons from the 2005 inter-census population survey

We examined migration in China using the 2005 inter-census population survey, in which migrants were registered at both their place of original (hukou) residence and at their destination. We find evidence that the estimated number of internal migrants in China is extremely sensitive to the enumeration method. We estimate that the traditional destination-based survey method fails to account for more than a third of migrants found using comparable origin-based methods. The ‘missing’ migrants are disproportionately young, male, and holders of rural hukou. We find that origin-based methods are more effective at capturing migrants who travel short distances for short periods, whereas destination-based methods are more effective when entire households have migrated and no remaining family members are located at the hukou location. We conclude with a set of policy recommendations for the design of population surveys in countries with large migrant populations.     

The fertility of negroes without southern rural experience: A re-examination of the 1960 GAF study findings with 1967 SEO Data

Abstract A major finding of the 1960 'Growth of American Families' (GAF) study was that whites and blacks without southern rural experience had similar fertility. This paper reports on a re-examination of this finding with a substantially larger black sample. Data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity demonstrated that the residence background classification utilized in the GAF study defeated, in part, the attempt to remove the effects of rural experience on fertility. Indigenous urban blacks had 25% higher fertility than indigenous urban whites. The fertility of urban black migrants out of the rural South was sharply curtailed in contrast to those remaining in the rural South. Although urban blacks of southern rural background had nominally higher fertility than indigenous urban blacks, the difference was neither statistically nor substantively significant. These results demand a re-ordering of the interpretation of the impact that migration has on urban black fertility and the white-black differential in fertility.     

流动人口在城市劳动力市场中的地位:三群体研究

关于流动人口在城市劳动力市场中的地位问题,过去已有大量文献,但研究重点是农民工。这里把外来市民纳入观察视野,利用2008年"迁移和流动劳动力与中国大城市发展"调查数据,分析工资收入和社会保险参与的影响因素。主要研究发现:在工资收入上,不同户籍身份劳动者之间没有净差异;在养老保险和工伤保险参与上,本市居民、外来市民和农民工参与的可能性依次递减。这意味着,工资收入已经基本上由劳动力市场决定,而社会保险参与依然与户籍身份有关。不过,这种关联方式已经从过去的城乡户籍身份歧视转向本地/非本地权益差异。     

Residence background,migration, and fertility

This paper attempts to clarify confusion concerning residence background and migration, and to demonstrate that each of these factors exerts an independent effect on fertility. Basic premises underlying the direction of the effect of these variables on fertility are examined. Data from the 1967 Survey of Economic Opportunity indicate that migration and residence background do have independent effects. It is concluded that present generalizations as to the direction of their influence should be submitted to closer scrutiny with additional data in the future. In addition, an index of rural exposure is developed to test the proposition that fertility varies directly with degree of rural experience. The data only partially support this hypothesis. Moreover, rural-to-urban migrants are found to have only slightly higher fertility than the receiving urban-origin population.     

婚姻挤压下农村流动人口的生育性别偏好——基于相对剥夺感视角的分析

中国的出生性别比偏高持续了三十年,婚姻挤压问题日益凸现,大规模的城乡人口流动则加剧了婚姻挤压问题及其社会影响的严重性与复杂性。受制度与非制度因素影响,农村流动人口在城市处于社会底层,易遭遇成婚困难、诱发相对剥夺感,可能对生育偏好产生重要影响。本文基于相对剥夺感视角,对2009年福建省X市外来农村流动人口调查数据的分析发现,婚姻挤压对农村流动人口的生育性别偏好的观念与行为均无显著影响,但相对剥夺感对生育性别偏好行为有显著影响。本研究有助于理解婚姻挤压与相对剥夺感对农村流动人口生育性别偏好演化的特殊作用,对国家调整生育政策、提高流动人口计生服务与管理、促进性别平等有一定借鉴意义。     

城市房价、定居意愿与户籍差异——对农民工“流入而留不下”的一个解释

近年来中国城镇化的快速推进吸引了大量流动人口从农村流入城市,但是中国城镇化进程存在一个有别于西方国家农业人口迁移过程的现象尚有待解释:为什么有相当比例的农民工流入城市进行工作却不打算长期定居?利用中国地级行政区域宏观房价数据和流动人口动态监测微观数据建立模型,从房价对定居意愿影响的户籍差异角度,解释了大量农民工在城市工作却不打算长期定居的原因,实证结果发现:高企的房价抑制了农民工的定居意愿,但是对城-城流动人口并没有明显影响。从生活成本效应、财富效应以及稳定预期效应等三方面影响机制进行了解释:房价上涨引起的生活成本上升会降低流动人口的定居意愿;而房价上升会通过财富效应和稳定预期效应增强流动人口的定居意愿。对于农民工来说,由于生活成本效应在三种效应中起主导作用,因此房价上涨总体上降低了农民工定居意愿;而房价对城-城流动人口影响不显著的原因,一方面由于房价上涨能够给城-城流动人口带来更高的个人未来发展的稳定预期,另一方面则源于更小的生活成本效应。