Human Capital and Urbanization in India

Author(s):  
Sandip Sarkar

This chapter analyses the human capital base of population, workers, and migrants and compares the human capital base of the population and workers in rural and urban areas. The nature and extent of the private sector’s role in human capital formation are also looked at. This chapter finds that earnings of workers increase substantially at each successive level of education and returns are far higher at the graduate-and-above level. The contribution of rural–urban migration in increasing the urban population has been around one-fifth. In that sense, urban growth has been exclusionary. It observes that urban areas are considerably better endowed with the quality of human capital and the average returns to education are higher in urban areas compared with rural areas, and rural–urban gaps in average return to education are increasing over time. It calls for active policy to promote rural–urban migration that will boost urban as well as national income. In this regard it argues for an active policy of promoting the labour-intensive manufacturing sector which is likely to promote more migration and reduce the selectivity bias in rural–urban migration.

Author(s):  
Charles Leyeka Lufumpa ◽  
Maurice Mubila ◽  
Tito Yepes

Given some of the key infrastructure challenges facing the continent, what is needed is a regionally integrated approach to confront these infrastructure challenges. The two main pillars of the infrastructure agenda are: (i) to strengthen the foundations for higher productivity in the main cities and (ii) to ensure a more even distribution of basic living standards. By clustering, firms increase the demand for infrastructure, thereby reaping cost savings from agglomeration. Inclusive growth also demands a more even distribution of basic living conditions in both rural and urban areas. This entails framing not only a coherent urban agenda, but also a commensurate rural agenda, to counter the incentives for rural–urban migration. What is needed is a broader vision of the technologies that can be deployed for service provision; the bundling of services wherever possible to increase effectiveness in peri-urban and rural areas; and a complementary rural development strategy.


Africa ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 606-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clemens Greiner

ABSTRACTRural–urban migration and networks are fundamental for many livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa. Remittances in cash and kind provide additional income, enhance food security and offer access to viable resources in both rural and urban areas. Migration allows the involved households to benefit from price differences between rural and urban areas. In this contribution, I demonstrate that rural–urban networks not only contribute to poverty alleviation and security, but also further socio-economic stratification. This aspect has been ignored or neglected by most scholars and development planners. Using ethnographic data from Namibia, I have adopted a translocal perspective on migration and stratification, focusing on the resulting impact in rural areas where modern urban forms of stratification, induced by education and income from wage labour, are on the increase.


Author(s):  
Paweł Siemiński ◽  
Jakub Hadyński ◽  
Walenty Poczta

The aim of this paper is to estimate, as well as analyse and assess spatial diversification in human capital resources in rural and urban areas of Poland. Studies have static nature and relate to the state of the situation in 2018 year. A synthetic index of human capital resources (IHCR) was applied, based on which a hierarchy was developed for rural and urban areas, depending on the administrative division into provinces determining the degree of their diversification in terms of their human capital resources. Human capital resources were analysed in four categories, i.e. in terms of employment, education, entrepreneurship and unemployment, using data from the Local Data Bank CSO database. Research results indicate considerable regional (spatial) diversification of rural and urban areas. We may distinguish two homogeneous classes, including urban areas with a high level of human capital development, as well as rural areas with their low level. Moreover, there is a heterogeneous group of the so-called medium level of human capital, composed of both urban and rural areas. Particularly, observed polarization in human capital resources may in the future reduce the absorption of development impulses within both national and EU development policies.


2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 55-64
Author(s):  
Lan Thi Phuong Ngo

By analyzing dimensions of labor migration in the delta’s rice-to-shrimp communities, this paper suggests that in the present context, the relationship between rural and urban areas cannot be separately analyzed. In this paper, this close relationship is manifested in two aspects of rural employments and rural-urban migration. Those factors of excess labor, limited land, lack of employment, and uncertain conditions in agriculture production are important movitations of labor migration in the delta. Our findings are that having close proximity to industrial and urban areas remains an important drive of rural-urban migration. However, the rapid development of transportation and information which more and more connects rural and urban areas effectively has reduced geographical distance. Consequently, the organic relations between rural and industrial and urban areas have accelerated rural-urban migration. Moreover, rural-migration is also an indicator of unsustainability in agricultural production of the Mekong Delta.


Author(s):  
Arup Mitra

In relation to urbanization, findings suggest that the unemployment rate after migration tends to decline. States with higher urbanization levels reveal a larger increase in regular wage employment after migration. With an increase in city size, the migration rate rises mainly because employment prospects are better in large cities due to agglomeration effects. Migration, urban informal sector employment, and the proportion of the Scheduled Caste population in urban and rural areas are all positively associated, suggesting that the socially backward groups are more likely to migrate from rural areas and get absorbed in the urban informal sector. This pattern is accompanied by a decline in the incidence of poverty in both rural and urban areas: even the urban informal sector activities are able to provide relatively better job opportunities and higher living standards.


2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-115
Author(s):  
Junghoon Moon ◽  
Joowon Park ◽  
Gu Hyun Jung ◽  
Young Chan Choe

The Internet has brought massive changes to human lives. Among the various positive and negative influences are the rural-urban digital divide, which refers to the information technology gap between rural and urban areas. The Korean government has made several effortS to close this digital divide. The main goal of this study is to identify how the personal and social lives of rural residents are affected by IT development in rural areas, and how the residents perceive the effect of IT development. To accomplish this goal, a survey research was conducted. A questionnaire was developed based on the current body of literature, and used to collect data. The questionnaire was distributed to rural residents in Korea and 272 responses our of a total of 300 collected were usable. Regression analysis methods were used for the analysis. On the analysis where the IT development index was used as an independent variable, positive relationships were found between the independent variables and some dependent variables such as perceived usefulness for jobs, IT usage skills, and tendencies of rural to urban migration. Findings show that rural residents are worried that IT development in rural areas may cause job loss in their respective communities, and decrease social interaction. However, positive perceptions were also apparent, as participants believed IT is useful for communications within the community, as well as better education and medical services.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-201
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Wosiek

Research background: The subject of the study is the disproportionate development of rural and urban areas in terms of human capital in the context of the convergence process. Purpose of the article: The main goal of the study is to assess the rural–urban disparities on the educational attainment of the population (adopted as a human capital proxy), based on the example of Poland. Methods: The Bray-Curtis measure of structures diversity, the Kruskal-Wallis test and regression analysis were applied to investigate the scale and dynamic of the rural–urban educational divide in Poland in the period 1988–2018. Findings & Value added: The paper emphasizes the aspect of rural–urban differences in the Polish economy and their dynamic nature. Studies have revealed that in 1988–2018, in Poland, the disparity in educational attainment between rural and urban populations was gradually reduced. This process, however, was not accompanied by the reduction of internal educational disparities in the rural space. The study results are helpful in verifying the effectiveness of public funds, allocated in recent years in order to accelerate the multi-functional development of rural areas in Poland and other CEE countries.


2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
AKM Ahsan ULLAH

This paper explores the factors contributing to the migration process in Bangladesh. 197 randomly selected migrants and their families were interviewed at both destination and source locations using closed and open-ended questionnaires. The resulting data provided descriptive and analytical statistics. Data analysis reveals that the flow of migration to the major cities in Bangladesh is the result of rural - urban dichotomies in income, employment opportunity and absorptive capacity. A significantly higher percentage of migrants live in slums as compared to other places (P<0.003). Regression analysis shows that migration is influenced by both “push” and “pull” factors, such as the search for work, landlessness, extreme poverty, loss of income,, easy access to informal sectors in cities, and joining families or relatives. A factor analysis showed similar determinants. Reducing disparities between rural and urban areas should receive urgent attention to stabilise the migration process in Bangladesh


1994 ◽  
Vol 33 (4I) ◽  
pp. 533-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahmood Hasan Khan

Pakistan has gone through many eventful political and economic changes since the late 1970s. Some of them have been transient, but many were deep and structural, hence even irreversible. Their consequences have been both promising and disturbing. The political system, since at least the mid-1980s, has been gradually democratised, but it is by no means stabilised as the events of 1993 clearly indicate. The economy has grown and transformed, but its management has been erratic. Many of the changes in the economy have come with the growth of the informal sector, both visible and invisible (illicit), which remains unaccounted for in the official statistics. In several urban and rural areas, persuasive though mainly anecdotal evidence suggests that the average standard of living far exceeds the impressions one gets from the national income accounts, household income and expenditure surveys. The growth of rent-seeking in the public and private sectors, illicit trade in drugs and smuggling across borders, informal activities in the rural and urban areas, and evasion of taxes have all contributed to the growth of the economy and distribution of assets and income.


Author(s):  
Remus Runcan

According to Romania’s National Rural Development Programme, the socio-economic situation of the rural environment has a large number of weaknesses – among which low access to financial resources for small entrepreneurs and new business initiatives in rural areas and poorly developed entrepreneurial culture, characterized by a lack of basic managerial knowledge – but also a large number of opportunities – among which access of the rural population to lifelong learning and entrepreneurial skills development programmes and entrepreneurs’ access to financial instruments. The population in rural areas depends mainly on agricultural activities which give them subsistence living conditions. The gap between rural and urban areas is due to low income levels and employment rates, hence the need to obtain additional income for the population employed in subsistence and semi-subsistence farming, especially in the context of the depopulation trend. At the same time, the need to stimulate entrepreneurship in rural areas is high and is at a resonance with the need to increase the potential of rural communities from the perspective of landscape, culture, traditional activities and local resources. A solution could be to turn vegetal and / or animal farms into social farms – farms on which people with disabilities (but also adolescents and young people with anxiety, depression, self-harm, suicide, and alexithymia issues) might find a “foster” family, bed and meals in a natural, healthy environment, and share the farm’s activities with the farmer and the farmer’s family: “committing to a regular day / days and times for a mutually agreed period involves complying with any required health and safety practices (including use of protective clothing and equipment), engaging socially with the farm family members and other people working on and around the farm, and taking on tasks which would include working on the land, taking care of animals, or helping out with maintenance and other physical work”


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