Rural-Urban Migration and Social Mobility in Third World Metropolises: a Cross-National Study*

Two implicit models have provided the major frameworks for rural-urban migration research in developing societies: one model, the underprivilege model, predicts that rural migrants enter the bottom rungs of the urban occupational structure and suffer inequality in status attainment in the city; the other model, the push up model, suggests that the influx of rural migrants provides a structural impetus to upward social mobility for the urban natives. This study synthesizes relevant findings from several major Asian and Latin American metropolises and thereby provides a cross-national test of the two models. The paper rejects both models and explicates structural reasons why the models do not hold true in Third World cities.