Migrants, Towns, Poverty and Jobs : Insights from Tanzania
For a long time, the urbanization and development discourse has coincided with a focus on economic growth and big cities. Yet, much of the world's new urbanization is taking place in smaller urban entities (towns), and the composition of urban...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/652421523306615094/Migrants-towns-poverty-and-jobs-insights-from-Tanzania http://hdl.handle.net/10986/29679 |
| Summary: | For a long time, the urbanization and
development discourse has coincided with a focus on economic
growth and big cities. Yet, much of the world's new
urbanization is taking place in smaller urban entities
(towns), and the composition of urbanization may well bear
on the speed of poverty reduction. This paper reviews the
latter question within the context of Tanzania. It starts
from the observation that migration to towns contributed
much more to poverty reduction than migration to cities
because many more (poor) rural migrants ended up in
Tanzania's towns than its cities, despite larger
welfare gains from moving to the city. Drawing on the
findings from a series of studies, looking at this from
different angles (theoretical and empirical, quantitative
and qualitative), the paper shows how towns are better at
enabling the rural poor to access off-farm employment and
exit poverty because they are more nearby. It concludes with
a call for greater consideration of the role of towns in
accelerating Africa's poverty reduction. |
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