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Projections of Internal Migration in Malawi: Implications for Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Edwin S. Segal
Edwin S. Segal
Affiliation:
Professor of Anthropology, University of Louisville, Kentucky, and Fulbright Professor of Sociology, Chancellor College, University of Malawi, Zomba.
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Extract

Most of the world's developing nations are primarily rural and agricultural. Therefore, governments have tended to place a policy emphasis on development in those sectors, usually as a result of employing the relatively straightforward argument that they should focus on the needs of the largest proportion of the inhabitants. The movement of population is generally seen in the light of rural–urban migration, although there is some evidence and opinion that this is not per se as massive as usually estimated. In addition, Rakesh Mohan has developed an economic model that suggests a close linkage between the success of rural development policies and an expansion in urbanisation, based on the assumption that the former increase both demand for and awareness of urban goods and services, resulting in a greater propensity for people to move to those places where these resources are most readily availabe. Thus, the more it has to turn its attention to the urban consequences.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 23 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 315 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

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1 It is important to keep in mind that Malawi has a long-standing policy of improving infant and under-five mortality rates, that a child-spacing programme has only recently been introduced, and that there is an approximate 40-year lag between decreases in birth rates and the resultant lowering of the growth in population. To the extent that urban areas are centres of medical facilities, these factors will tend to increase the seriousness of the urban demographic problem.