Migrants, Towns, Poverty and Jobs : Insights from Tanzania

Christiaensen, Luc ; De Weerdt, Joachim ; Ingelaere, Bert ; Kanbur, Ravi

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: LABOR MIGRATION;    JOB CREATION;    LABOR MARKET;    POVERTY REDUCTION;    RURAL LABOR MARKET;   

RP-ID  :  125073

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

For a long time, the urbanization anddevelopment discourse has coincided with a focus on economicgrowth and big cities. Yet, much of the world's newurbanization is taking place in smaller urban entities(towns), and the composition of urbanization may well bearon the speed of poverty reduction. This paper reviews thelatter question within the context of Tanzania. It startsfrom the observation that migration to towns contributedmuch more to poverty reduction than migration to citiesbecause many more (poor) rural migrants ended up inTanzania's towns than its cities, despite largerwelfare gains from moving to the city. Drawing on thefindings from a series of studies, looking at this fromdifferent angles (theoretical and empirical, quantitativeand qualitative), the paper shows how towns are better atenabling the rural poor to access off-farm employment andexit poverty because they are more nearby. It concludes witha call for greater consideration of the role of towns inaccelerating Africa's poverty reduction.