Migration’s contribution to the urban transition: Direct census estimates from Africa and Asia

BACKGROUND The components of urbanisation are important to understand, since urbanisation is closely related to development. Internal migration was key in historical urban transitions, while in contemporary transitions the balance of births and deaths has been the main driver of urbanisation. Reclassification of rural areas and international migration also contribute to urbanisation. OBJECTIVE Unlike previous work based on indirectly measured net migration estimates, we directly estimate inand out-migration rates between rural and urban areas across Africa and Asia by age and sex, and evaluate the contribution of the balance of these flows to urbanisation. METHOD We use 67 census samples from IPUMS International for 28 countries in Africa and Asia between 1970 and 2014 to estimate inand outmigration between rural and urban areas, based on available questions of residence. We then model ageand sex-specific migration rates using Poisson regression and estimate net migration through marginal effects. RESULTS Results confirm that, in both continents, urbanisation is not generated by rural-to-urban migration but by the urban population itself, be it through natural growth or through expansion to peripheral areas. In Asia, urbanisation reflects internal migration trends and reclassification decisions to a greater extent than in Africa, where natural growth is the key contributor. 1 Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. Email: philippe.bocquier@uclouvain.be. 2 Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. Bocquier, Menashe-Oren & Nie: Migration’s contribution to the urban transition 682 https://www.demographic-research.org CONTRIBUTION By using direct estimates, we ascertain the role of inter-regional rural–urban migration in urbanisation. We find that a positive effect of inter-regional migration is counterbalanced by a negative effect of intra-regional migration (combined with reclassification and international migration).