Climate change, especially the warming trend experienced in recent years by several countries, could affect agricultural productivity. As a consequence the income of rural populations will change, ...and with it the incentives for people to remain in rural areas. Using data from 115 countries between 1960 and 2000, we analyze the effect of differential warming trends across countries on the probability of either migrating out of the country or from rural to urban areas. We find that higher temperatures in middle-income economies increased migration rates to urban areas and to other countries. In poor countries, higher temperatures reduced the probability of migration to cities and to other countries, consistently with the presence of severe liquidity constraints. In middle-income countries, migration represents an important margin of adjustment to global warming, potentially contributing to structural change and even increasing income per worker. Such a mechanism, however, does not seem to work in poor economies.
•In low income countries a temperature increase decreases migration and traps people into poverty.•In middle income countries warming strengthens the incentives to migrate to cities or abroad.•Higher temperatures encourage a transformation towards more urban and productive economies.•Growing temperatures mainly increase emigration towards close and non-OECD destinations.
This paper is among the first to link the literatures on migration and on subjective well-being in developing countries. It poses the question: why do rural–urban migrant households settled in urban ...China have an average happiness score lower than rural households? Three basic hypotheses are examined: migrants had false expectations about their future urban conditions, or about their future urban aspirations, or about their future selves. Estimated happiness functions and decomposition analyses, based on a 2002 national household survey, indicate that certain features of migrant conditions make for unhappiness, and that their high aspirations in relation to achievement, influenced by their new reference groups, also make for unhappiness. Although the possibility of selection bias among migrants cannot be ruled out, it is apparently difficult for migrants to form unbiased expectations about life in a new and different world.
Obstacles to internal migration in China contribute to inefficiency, inequality, and land degradation. Academic and policy debate has primarily focused on discrimination against rural migrants on ...arrival in urban areas. Meanwhile, barriers to migration out of rural areas have received less attention. This paper examines the role of incomplete rural property rights in the migration decisions of rural households. We examine the relationship between tenure insecurity and restrictions on land rentals, and participation in outside labor markets. The results indicate that tenure insecurity reduces migration. This relationship is particularly pronounced on forest land, which has implications for the conservation of recently replanted forest areas.
Access to Power Nelson, Joan M
2017, 20170314, 2017-03-14
eBook
Joan Nelson elucidates the implications of this rapid growth and concomitant poverty for politics. Unlike many scholars who have sought an all-encompassing theory to explain the political behavior of ...the urban poor, Professor Nelson emphasizes the complex variety in the economic, social, and political circumstances that influence this behavior.
Originally published in .
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
From 1940 to 1970, nearly four million black migrants left the American rural South to settle in the industrial cities of the North and West. This work provides a comprehensive account of the ...long-lasting effects of the influx of black workers on labor markets and urban space in receiving areas. Traditionally, the Great Black Migration has been lauded as a path to general black economic progress.
Economic reform in China has resulted in a widening gap between the rich and the poor, and urban poverty has emerged as a key factor which may affect future development. This new book examines the ...poverty problem in relation to housing and social changes in large inland cities, and assesses the effectiveness of recent government anti-poverty policies. The book also puts the Chinese experience in the wider context of transitional economies and discusses the similarities and differences between China and Central and Eastern European countries. The book is based on a long period of research on Chinese urban development, and benefited from several research projects conducted in Chinese cities. It is an important reference for all of those interested in housing, urban studies and social change, and is a key text for students of the Chinese economy and society.
Ya Ping Wang is currently Reader at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and has previously taught at Shaanxi Teachers University in Xi'an. His research on contemporary China had been supported by the UK Economic and Social Research Council, UK Department For International Development, British Academy, British Council and his university. He has published widely on planning, housing and urban poverty in China and is the co-author with Professor Alan Murie of Housing Policy and Practice in China (1999).
1. Introduction Part 1: Society and Urban Transition 2. Society in Transition 3. Urban Transition in China Part 2: Urban Poverty and Housing 4. Emerging Problems of the Urban Poor 5. Social and Economic Profile of the Urban Poor 6. Housing the Urban Poor 7. Poverty among Migrants 8. Poverty Elimination 9. Conclusion
Drawing on the life stories of 266 migrants in South China, Choi and Peng examine the effect of mass rural-to-urban migration on family and gender relationships, with a specific focus on changes in ...men and masculinities. They show how migration has forced migrant men to renegotiate their roles as lovers, husbands, fathers, and sons. They also reveal how migrant men make masculine compromises: they strive to preserve the gender boundary and their symbolic dominance within the family by making concessions on marital power and domestic division of labor, and by redefining filial piety and fatherhood. The stories of these migrant men and their families reveal another side to China's sweeping economic reform, modernization, and grand social transformations.
For decades, most American Indians have lived in cities, not on reservations or in rural areas. Still, scholars, policymakers, and popular culture often regard Indians first as reservation peoples, ...living apart from non-Native Americans. In this book, Nicolas Rosenthal reorients our understanding of the experience of American Indians by tracing their migration to cities, exploring the formation of urban Indian communities, and delving into the shifting relationships between reservations and urban areas from the early twentieth century to the present.With a focus on Los Angeles, which by 1970 had more Native American inhabitants than any place outside the Navajo reservation,Reimagining Indian Countryshows how cities have played a defining role in modern American Indian life and examines the evolution of Native American identity in recent decades. Rosenthal emphasizes the lived experiences of Native migrants in realms including education, labor, health, housing, and social and political activism to understand how they adapted to an urban environment, and to consider how they formed--and continue to form--new identities. Though still connected to the places where indigenous peoples have preserved their culture, Rosenthal argues that Indian identity must be understood as dynamic and fully enmeshed in modern global networks.
Out to Work Gaetano, Arianne M
2015, 20150315
eBook
Out to Workis an engaging account of the lives of a group of rural Chinese women who, while still in their teens, moved from villages to Beijing to take up work as maids, office cleaners, hotel ...chambermaids, and schoolteachers. Among the vanguard of China's great rural-urban migration in the 1990s, these women confronted challenges that were unique to their generation. They were deprived of an education because their families could not afford school fees for both sons and daughters, yet their plans to leave home and better their lives met with strong objections from parents who feared for their daughters' safety and reputations in the big city. Lacking the local, urban household registration (hukou), they were channeled into inferior jobs and denied social welfare.
This longitudinal and biographical exploration of migrant women's lives demonstrates how the intersection of gendered norms and rural-urban inequalities shapes women's identities and desires, and has deleterious material consequences. Yet, by pursuing new opportunities afforded by migration, and strategically applying accumulated knowledge and resources, these women forged better lives for themselves and their families. The book thus convincingly shows that migration for work increases rural women's choices and possibilities for exercising agency, and advances gender equality. But it also makes clear that broader social inequalities persist to make these women's futures precarious.
PDF
