Why Secondary Towns Can Be Important for Poverty Reduction : A Migrant's Perspective
This paper develops the concept of "action space" as the range of possible destinations to which a migrant can realistically move at a given point in time and, intimately linked to this, the set of possible livelihoods at destination. It...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/788721505317450769/Why-secondary-towns-can-be-important-for-poverty-reduction-a-migrants-perspective http://hdl.handle.net/10986/28371 |
| Summary: | This paper develops the concept of
"action space" as the range of possible
destinations to which a migrant can realistically move at a
given point in time and, intimately linked to this, the set
of possible livelihoods at destination. It shows how this
space expands and contracts over time through
"cumulative causation." Such a dynamic framework
allows for appreciating the role of secondary towns in
rural-urban migration and poverty reduction. Secondary towns
occupy a unique middle ground between semi-subsistence
agriculture and the capitalistic city, between what is close
by and familiar and what is much further away and unknown.
By opening the horizons of the (poorer) rural population and
facilitating navigation of the nonfarm economy, secondary
towns allow a broader base of the poor population to become
physically, economically, and socially mobile. Secondary
towns therefore have great potential as vehicles for
inclusive growth and poverty reduction in urbanizing
developing countries. These are the insights emerging from
the in-depth life history accounts of 75 purposively
selected rural-urban migrants from rural Kagera, in Tanzania. |
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