Introduction to the Report Rapid changes are being observed in our socio-economic structure. Inflation, influx of migrants, rapid industrialization, arbitration and other similar factors contribute to changes. Age old custom, values, traditions are breaking down. Sociologically we may conclude that our culture is changing and one basic reason for this change is the transformation of our economics. The modern world is the world of arbitration, industrialization and social change. Pakistan is expected to be urbanize and thus, industrialized with the development of factories and the establishment of industries.
This can be felt all over the country. The acceleration in growth of cities, the correlation between size of city, its growth and the inclination towards industrial and commercial expansion indicates that arbitration in Pakistan is gaining momentum and with it acting as a major pull factor for people living in much less developed regions of the country. Increasing population density, worsening unemployment figures, burdening the resources of already over populated cities, causing social chaos are only a few of the much widespread effects of Rural-urban Migration.
Scope of Report The first section of this report introduces the subject of study and outlines the theme of discussion. A comprehensive and widely accepted definition of Migration, the forces behind it and its pros and cons will be methodically discussed. All information has been supported with the sufficient use of statistics. The case of migration in correlation to arbitration will be discussed with emphasis on the sectors of Employment and Education in the second half of the report. All data is part of primary and secondary research.
Relevant statistics attained from the official sources f The Federal Statistics Bureau of Pakistan have been appropriately used to establish facts and explain the impacts of all existing trends. Specifically, as part of primary research, a focus group was conducted with the aim of understanding the outlook and socio-economic expectations of those who have migrated to Karachi from rural areas. To gain further insight, Ms. Mauves Zigzag, a patron of the MONGO, “This Way Left” was consulted for an expert opinion. A synopsis of her opinion on the current situation of migration in correlation to arbitration, is a later part of the report.
As members of this research project, we, based on our findings have also provided a framework of recommendations and policies which we believe should be inculcated and would help control this problem of rural-urban migration and the other issues coupled with it. Introduction to the Variable: Migration Migration can be defined as the displacement of a person who leaves their place of birth or to residence tort another place. Human Migration may take place in large groups as well as when a single person moves from one place to another to take up permanent or semi-permanent residence in an area other than his native district.
According to the United Nations Development Program’s, Human Development Report published in 2009; there are almost 1 billion migrants in the world – that is 1 out of every 7 persons is a migrant. Human migration occurs at a variety of scales: Inter-continental: between continents Intra-continental: between countries on a given continent Inter-regional: within countries One of the most significant migration patterns has been of rural to urban migration? the movement of people from the countryside to cities in search of opportunities.
Causes Of Rural Urban Migration From the perspective of the migrants, the main cause for settlement in cities is to earn more to send the money back in their villages to the families they have left Enid, to provide better educational prospects to their children, to provide better health and sanitation facilities to their families, to get better employment opportunities, to repay their debts and emerge out of the misery of poverty. There is an apparent increase in the urban labor market activity, considerable decrease in poverty and a significant difference in the perceived wage rate of the urban and rural areas.
The migrant typically leaves his wife and children behind initially and sends money to them from the city to provide for their basic necessities. He then returns back to the village during peak agricultural season. Being able to bring his family to the city is considered a milestone by him. Migration is simply an escape from his problems. Another very obvious factor that enhances the tendency of rural to urban migration is the vast network effect. Once the initial process of migration from one village to a city has started, it is followed by streams of migrants.
This is due to their connections in the cities; having your relatives, friends or family at the urban destination makes it easier for you to migrate. They may help you find suitable and affordable accommodation, they may help you find a decent Job and adjust in the ewe environment. This positively impacts the perceived return of migration for the rural man. Karachi is one of the most urbanize cities in Pakistan. It is the only modern and progressive city in Kinds. From the perspective of an urban city center, there are many factors that draw migrants to that city.
Karachi being the provincial capital attracts many people from the interior Kinds. The boom in the construction industry also boosted the rural urban migration because more housing units were being built. Another point of attraction was the expansion of the fishing industry in Karachi. An additional external factor included the expansion of agriculture in the Punjab and Ballpark due to development in the irrigation system causing an increase in the production of cotton.
This resulted in augmentation of the port related businesses and drew more migrants towards the Southern part of Kinds. The above given table, provides tigress trot the 1998 census tort migration according to rationale, classified on the basis of province. As can be seen in the table, the highest weighting is of the population that “Moves with the Head”. Kinds having a 49. 13%, Punjab 38%, NFW 57. 51% and Balloonists 43. 85%. Whereas people moving or reasons of “Employment” are comparatively much less in number. Kinds having a 15. 78%, Punjab 9. 06%, NFW 16. 53 and Balloonists 24. 15%. Or justify this vast difference in figures it is necessary to understand that when the family head, in the case of Pakistan, usually males, migrate to urban centers in search of employment opportunities and a better standard of living, their families usually migrate with them if not later ( approximately a period of 6 months). Therefore, a higher percentage of people migrate under the head of “Moving with the Head”. With an average family size of 7. 5 persons in the context of a single male coming to a territorial city in hope of finding a better standard of living, brings with him, on an average, tallest 6. Persons of which 5. 5 are under the legal age of employment therefore a higher dependency ratio. A huge percentage of the Pakistani population migrates due to personal and social reasons such as Marriage. Due to the improvement in transport networks, construction of roads, highways which connect rural cities to urban hubs a great percentage of people are noted to travel to and from which obviously contributes to the high rural to urban migratory pattern; which simultaneously increases marriage trends.
Females living in rural areas are married to men working in big cities. Such trends result in entire families migrating to urban centers. Pros and Cons of Rural Urban Migration in Pakistan Rural-urban migration in Pakistan has resulted in many positive as well as negative effects. Many of these effects can already be seen; others have the potential to appear in our economy. Pros: Many people would say that Rural to Urban migration in Pakistan is a good way of inculcating progress in the economy.
Following the Lexis’s model of the Two-sector economy, the basic and the most major advantage Rural to Urban migration brings bout in the economy is the transfer of surplus labor from the traditional agrarian sector to the modern industrial sector the country. This is that kind of labor that is not doing any productive work in the agricultural area. So migration of that labor from that sector to the modern sector, training them and using them in the organized city work helps create a better labor force.
Rural to Urban migration has also helped increase the level of income of the average person living in the rural sector. If the worker/laborer had stayed in his village, he may not have earned that much income as to what he was able to earn in the city. Migration enabled him to earn more, thus satisfying more of his needs. This has improved the level of that migrant who was originally numbered among the poor and is now living above the poverty line. Hence there is a fairly uniform agreement that both internal and international migrations help in absolute poverty reduction.
There is significant proof that where migration has occurred the consequent amount of poverty reduction has been substantial. And the places that have remained isolated from migration remain among the poorest in the country. Where the workers migrate from their rural villages to the city, they have ore opportunities to transfer funds and resources that they accumulate in the urban cities to their rural homes thus enabling development of their home community. This means that there is a potential of trickle down of benefits through a multiplier effect.
Migration may also enhance intergenerational socioeconomic mobility, though this remains to be explored. This means that there is more probability that due to migration the income prospects of the children of the migrants is much better than that of their parents. Migration may also in an indirect manner effect the people of the rural areas. If the individuals from very distant villages are not able to move into town themselves, they may however participate in a chain of replacement migration, moving into those rural areas from which migrants are drawn into town or overseas.
This means that individuals from extremely remote areas may end up migrating to less remote villages taking a small step towards moving into the city. Migration provides individuals migrating from poor areas better level to living, better sanitation and health toxicities, better Job and educational opportunities and better access to electricity and water facilities. It has been observed that people migrating from the rural areas to the cities have better chances of survival than they would have had if they had stayed in the village. Rural life is full of diseases and malnourishment.
This is one of the major reasons why people want to move away from those areas. Once they enter the city, they have access to better and effective medicines and treatments that would give them more chances of avoiding diseases. It has been discovered that children of migrant families have a lower infant mortality rate and higher birth weight. Since mothers in the migrant implies acquire better knowledge regarding health and nutrition, they are better able to give birth to healthy babies lowering the infant mortality rate. These babies have better chances of staying alive and remain healthy.
Apart from this, migrant mothers also spread their health related knowledge in their home villages indirectly improving the child health among those non-migrant families also. Employment related Rural to urban migration and changing social structure of the economy has also enhanced the preferences towards more nuclear families thus decreasing the household size. This would mean more affordability. Where one breadwinner initially had to support a large family now has to support lesser individuals. This way he is able to provide larger proportions of income to each of his family members.
There is also considerable evidence that the remittances resulting from rural urban migration are often spent on school fees. There is supporting evidence that remittance incomes are positively correlated with education enrolment. This means that the urban income earned by the migrants is being spent on improving the quality of education of their children. It has also been observed that migration has helped people in loving their small problems like paying off of debts. Cons: Migration in some contexts has posed a problem in the economy.
A few years ago this migration trend was beneficial for the economy. However during the current recession period almost every company/organization has undergone downsizing resulting in a huge level of unemployment. Where the labor force from the interior used to come to the city for work; now there is no work available for the labor force that is already present in the cities. Even considering the largest and fastest growing cohort in Pakistan I. E. The young individuals between the ages of 15 to 25, majority of his youth presently remains unemployed.
There emerges a risk of the energies of these young adults to be directed towards other less appropriate activities because their energies are not being utilized productively. Migration has also increased the burden on the deteriorating economy of our country. The resources of the most urbanites cities of Pakistan I. E. Karachi, Lahore, Rawlins, Islamabad and Fusillades are being more and more divided over the increasing population. There is an increasing demand of the general public services that the economy is not being able to meet.
This increasing gap between the demand and supply of the general public services has given rise to a lot of frustration and an increase in the crime rate. The ever escalating rural to urban migration is t inning the capacity to the urban city to provide employment and the basic necessities to these migrants. These migrants come to the city with lots of expectations of a better life which are ultimately not met. This instills in them a feeling of deprivation and disappointment which eventually leads to violent and aggressive behavior, criminal acts and emotional turmoil.
It is not the only reason for the increasing crime rate in our country, which includes bile and car snatching and trafficking of drugs; however rural urban migration may be considered as one of the major reasons for the augmenting crime rates in Karachi. Another related problem is the identity crisis. These migrants have to undergo a lot of adjustments both socially and mentally when they enter a new city with an entirely different environment, lifestyle, language, mannerisms etc. They have to give up a lot of their past habits due to which they often indulge in an identity crisis.
Due to this very reason, they become vulnerable and end up Joining political and religious extremist groups. Excessive migration trends have resulted in an increase in the urban population by 3. 54% per year. In addition to this, in Karachi, where population rises at 6% per annum, urban services expand by only 1. 2%. This means that there is a mounting need for new housing facilities, transportation facilities, water, sewage and electricity facilities and health and sanitation and security facilities.
In a very short span of time, with such increasing needs and saturation in the urban cities, the Pakistan economy will not be able to keep up with these new demands. Distribution of resources over a larger and increasing population has led to acute power and water shortages in the country and especially in Karachi. Such electricity failures in return directly affect the everyday activities of the city and frustrate the citizens. The transportation sector is also not being able to cope with the increasing demand of the public transport facilities.
Since planning of the infrastructure and housing units has always been reactive rather than anticipatory, lack of proper housing space and less affordability of such facilities in the urban cities has led to emergence of slums and squatter settlements in the major ties. This means unlawful residences, or “Synopsis / catch beads” spring up in some areas of the cities. These areas then become the cultivation point of different diseases as well as crimes. The increase in the number of migrants also results in congestion, pollution, extreme traffic hassles, overpopulation and suffocation.
The road networks and the housing schemes in Karachi are not designed to accommodate such a large number of people. Currently the government is only being able to meet about one-eighth of the total per year housing demand in the city. Still hey are constantly trying to fit into these cities in congested small apartments and other small houses. This has lead to a major issue of traffic Jams on the streets of Karachi. The health and educational system in Karachi is also not that diverse to accommodate such a large number of people.
Even if the migrants do earn a bit more, some of them are still not able to afford the hospital fees or the expenses of medicines for their children. The hospitals have been made according to the population of Karachi, but this population is increasing everyday and is resulting in more patients and less doctors. Apart from this, the children of migrants almost always end up in government schools which are overcrowded and do not offer quality education or even the basic facilities like a proper class room, benches or stationery.
Due to lack to opportunities, people leave the pollution tree environments and less costly houses in their rural villages and migrate to urban cities where finding a house at an affordable rate is becoming increasingly difficult with real estate agents imposing their terms on the individuals. The migrants have taken up even the petty jobs available in the informal sector of the cities, like bus conductors, drivers, and hoppers etc. Leaving very little Jobs for the city people. Rural to urban migration in this way has directly augmented the unemployment process.
Due to migration there has become more parental absence in the rural areas. Fathers being the head of the house move to the cities to earn leaving their women and children back in the villages. This results in less supervision of the children with respect to their school attendance, basic learning at home and other activities. Presence of mothers does not have much influence on the sons because the value of women in the rural areas is next to nothing. In some cases the extended family may replace the absent fathers; however the probability of this happening is very low.
In the same regard, the absence of fathers may also put pressure on the young children to quit their schools and take up work to support the family’s basic needs. It is also a fact that in case of children migrating from the rural areas, they are more likely to migrate from communities with higher migration propensities. But these children, not having that much education or schooling, are not able to find decent Jobs and end up living on the streets of the urban cities. Economic growth and consequent urban migration eave caused changes in preferences towards more nuclear families.
This has caused a perceptible lowering of the household size. As a result there has been an increase in the area requirements and a demand for more housing units which may very soon lead to saturation of housing space in Karachi. It may also be said that rural to urban migration is also one of the reasons for the increase in the number of beggars on the streets of Karachi. This is a commonly observed and an apparent consequence of all of the above mentioned implications of migration.
Arbitration The world is undergoing the largest wave of urban growth in history. According to recent figures more than half of the world’s population is living in urban towns and cities. Economists estimate that by the year 2030, almost 5 billion will be living in these urban centers. Pakistan being the world’s 7th most over populated country is undergoing extreme arbitration such that it is becoming burdensome for the Government to control the many negativisms attached with it.
With rapid industrialization taking place in Pakistan, arbitration is an inevitable phenomenon. Arbitration is not Just a side effect of economic growth; it is an integral part of the process, according to the World Bank. With the vigorous economic growth averaging 7 percent and availability of millions of new Jobs created between 2000 and 2008, there has been increased rural to urban migration in Pakistan to take advantage of the in growing Job opportunities in the manufacturing and service sectors.
The level of arbitration in Pakistan is now the highest in South Asia, and its urban population is likely to equal its rural population by 2030, according to a report title d ‘Elite in the C Pakistan in Focus’, released by the United Nations Population Fund. The urban population now contributes about 75% of Pakistanis GAP and nearly the entire of the overpayment’s revenue. The industrial sector contributes over 27% of the GAP, 19% is contributed by agriculture, while service sector contributes the rest of the 54%.
According to the Population Census 1998, it can be seen that the highest growth in cities in context to arbitration has been noted in Islamabad 5. 76 %, Larkin 4. 69%, Ihram Yard Khan 4. 04%, Superhuman 4. 11%, Equate 4. 09%, Karachi 3. 49% and Lahore 3. 32 %. Karachi, Lahore and Equate being provincial capitals and Islamabad being the Federal capital have acted as major pull factors for people living in adjoining rural areas. Big, metropolitan cities like Karachi and Lahore are dream cities for people living in the rural areas all over the country.
According to an American research company, Karachi is known as Pakistanis “lifeline”. With a contribution of 25% to the country’s GAP, “Karachi is one of the most over crowded cities of the world”. There are many issues caused by the current wave of arbitration. Foremost being the massive increase urban population due to mass rural urban migration. The over population of urban cities like Karachi and Lahore is the root of their very problems.
