rural to urban migration is an unforeseen impact of development intervention in ethiopia农村向城市迁移是一个不可预见的影响发展的干预在埃塞俄比亚.pdfVIP

Rural to Urban Migration Is an Unforeseen Impact of Development Intervention in Ethiopia 1 2 Mhairi A. Gibson *, Eshetu Gurmu 1 Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom, 2 Center of Population Studies, College of Development Studies, Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Abstract Rural development initiatives across the developing world are designed to improve community well-being and livelihoods. However they may also have unforeseen consequences, in some cases placing further demands on stretched public services. In this paper we use data from a longitudinal study of five Ethiopian villages to investigate the impact of a recent rural development initiative, installing village-level water taps, on rural to urban migration of young adults. Our previous research has identified that tap stands dramatically reduced child mortality, but were also associated with increased fertility. We demonstrate that the installation of taps is associated with increased rural-urban migration of young adults (15–30 years) over a 15 year period (15.5% migrate out, n = 1912 from 1280 rural households). Young adults with access to this rural development intervention had three times the relative risk of migrating to urban centres compared to those without the development. We also identify that family dynamics, specifically sibling competition for limited household resources (e.g. food, heritable land and marriage opportunities), are key to understanding the timing of out-migration. Birth of a younger sibling doubled the odds of out-migration and starting married life reduced it. Rural out-migration appears to be a response to increasing rural resource scarcity, principally competition for agricultural land. Strategies for livelihood diversification