How much does rural- to- urban migration contribute to urbanisation globally and what is the trend of this contribution?
Answers
Explanation:
I have come across articles that refer to the UN-DESA World Urbanization Prospects 2009 revision to back up claims such as "rural–urban migration is the most important contributor to urban growth in many developing countries". However, I do not find such claim in the UN report or elsewhere.
The most useful references I have come across while trying to find an answer to this question are the book 'The New Global Frontier' (edited by Martine et al. 2008) and a chapter by Chen et al. (1998) called 'What do we know about recent trends in urbanization?'. There, the authors explain that urban growth is mainly driven by urban fertility and mortality (natural growth), while urbanization (i.e. the growth of the urban share of the total population) is driven primarily by rural out-migration and reclassification of rural land (at least in some regions). But I have not found any study that separates these two different 'contributions' to urbanization.