Socio-Economic Security and Rural-Urban Migration

Socio-economic security and rural-urban migration

[Published in the Daily New Age on April 17, 2016] Op-Ed

newagebd.net/221447/socio-economic-security-and-rural-urban-migration/

Traffic congestion in Dhaka. — New Age/Sony Ramany

MIGRATION has been a part of human history since time immemorial and man is relentlessly changing places as part of a process of adaptation to his social, economic, cultural and ecological convenience. In most primitive societies, migration is seen as an exigency of existence of the man. He used to migrate in search of food, livelihood and above all the utmost social security which has an interesting story to quote here, borrowing from Confucius’ life sketch. ‘In passing by the side of Mount Thai, Confucius came on a woman who was sobbing bitterly by a grave. The Guru advanced forward and sent a man to her to ask some questions. “Your wailing,” said he, “is that of one who has suffered sorrow on sorrow.” She replied, “That is so. Once, my husband’s father was killed here by a tiger. My husband was also killed, and my son has died in the same way.” The Guru then said, “Why do you not leave this place?” The answer was, “There is no oppressive government here.” The Grand Master then said, “Remember this, my children: oppressive government is more terrible than tiger”.’ Thus, a man has to choose his ultimate abode which is more stable, peaceful, secured as well as developed compared to life in the earlier undeveloped and insecure social environment. Potentially so, in modern times, particularly as rural to urban migration is accelerating and becomes the most important policy issue for development in the 21st century. Nestled among these issues in consideration, the prime object of this treatise is to focus on the rationale for urban migration in the current intolerable traffic congested, humid and extreme heat wave ridden Dhaka city, all of which have almost choked out our city life, halting all daily businesses and duties of the city dwellers. As in other cities in the developing world, migration is an important factor in changing the size and structure of the population in Dhaka city as well. At present, Dhaka has become an over-populated, over-congested and over-polluted city which is ranked as one of the most densely populated and worst cities in the world to live in. Traffic congestion and mismanagement are the prime causes for this poor ranking. Though there are many reasons documented in several reports for the present debacle of Dhaka city, the significant surge in population is identified as one of the most important among them. According to recent reports, compared to other populous cities of the world, Dhaka is a tiny city of 815.8 square kilometres with a population of 18 million. The population census reports done by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics demonstrate that in 1991, 2001 and 2011, the population of Dhaka metropolitan area was 6.50 million, 9.70 million and 14.50 million, respectively. The censuses show a sharp in-surge of population to Dhaka city which has now become one of the fastest growing cities in the world, in this respect. As the city uses only 7.5 per cent of its total area for its roads against the standard requirement of 25 per cent for a modern city, the traffic jam of Dhaka has turned out to be a nightmare for city dwellers. Starting from the assertion that migration is primarily a social and economic phenomenon, for which an individual migrant can have a rational decision, despite the existence of vicious urban unemployment, economic models postulate that migration takes place in response to insecurity in urban-rural differences, particularly in expected income security rather than actual outcomes. However, the fundamental premise is that migrants take into their account various labour market opportunities available to them in the rural and urban sectors and choose the one which maximises their expected gains from migration. As a result, in deciding to migrate, an individual must balance the probabilities and risks of being unemployed or will seek casual and part-time informal employment as vendors, hawkers, repairmen, itinerant day labourers and rickshaw-pullers. And the rest of the unemployed may chose other dirty and illegal social and economic activities merely to survive the harsh urban life. In this way, urban unemployment and private socio-economic rationality of migration tend to continue despite the high urban unemployment. Consequently, this debacle of urban migration and dirty lifestyles of the unemployed can lead to high social costs in terms of crimes such as cheating, stealing, forgery, snatching, mugging, robbing, children and women trafficking, smuggling and even killing which have amply been evident in every daily newspaper and other news media of the country. Besides, this complex phenomenon of rapid growth of urban migration has multi-dimensional spill- over effects on various facets of city life such as heavy pressure on limited urban services and infrastructure, environment, provision of medical treatment, educational institutions and above all, heavy traffic congestion which can completely engulf an entire city. The present daily situation of roads in Dhaka is a vivid example of that. Evidently, one of the main reasons is induced migration towards an expected better life, just like winning a lottery, in urban sector, resulting in an explosive population growth. Then what are the potential policy implications as remedy for this heavy inflow of urban migration? In the next section, we delineate a few expert opinions in terms of policy options to find solutions to the aforementioned problems and ultimate economic progress. First, imbalances in urban-rural employment opportunities caused by the urban bias must be reduced. Because migrants are induced to respond to expected income differentials, it is imperative to minimise imbalances of economic opportunities between urban and rural sectors. When urban wage rates rise faster than average rural incomes, they stimulate further rural-urban migration in spite of the rising level of unemployment and social insecurity. This heavy influx of people into urban spaces not only spurs myriads of socio-economic problems in the city, but may also dent into rural labour shortages during the busy seasons. These social costs may outweigh the aggregate private benefits of migration. Second, urban job creation is not the proper solution for mitigating the urban unemployment problem. The famous Keynesian economic solution to urban unemployment, ie the creation of more urban jobs without contemporaneous attempts to improve rural incomes and employment opportunities, can result into a paradox where more urban unemployment leads to perpetuate higher levels of unemployment. Third, indiscriminate educational expansion is also not a solution because it will induce further migration and unemployment. Fourth, many experts think that wage subsidy is a key to mitigating unemployment problems. However, it is also true that wage subsidies and traditional scarcity factor pricing can be counter- productive. Finally and most importantly, programmes of integrated rural development should be encouraged by which people in rural areas would be less induced to migrate to urban areas. Be that as it may, all types of socio-economic services including educational, medical, business and communicating infrastructures ought to be provided at the doorstep of all rural households. Mohammad A Ashraf, PhD, former head, Department of Economics, United International University.