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BSOC 2103

RURAL LABOUR, MIGRATION AND DEVELOPMENT

What is labour?

This is human energy (physical, mental or intellectual) expended/directed to

the realization/accomplishment of consciously defined goals.

What is Labour Force?

This is the segment of population whose function is to produce the goods and
service needed to satisfy the requirements of the whole society or country i.e
the economically active part of the population. Those aged between 15-64
years are usually considered to be in the productive age groups or to
constitute the labour force of the country. Those aged under 15 and over 64
years are dependent on them.

According to the international recommended standards, the labour force or

the economically active population of a country comprises of all persons of
either sex who furnish the supply of labour available for the production of
goods and services. These include employers. Employees, self-employed
persons and those who assist without pay in family economic enterprises but
not in the normal running of the household.

Thus, Labour force consists of all those physically able to work and permitted
by social convention to do so and thus, includes both the employed and
unemployed persons (UN, 1976).

Rural Labour force therefore refers to the segment of the population found
within the rural scene whose function is to produce the goods and services
needed to satisfy the requirements of the community.

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Why Study Rural Labour?

1. The agricultural sector is the backbone of many Africa economies

(Kenya included) in terms of employment generation, provision of food
and income generation. However, the agriculture sector derives its
labour force from the rural labour. Hence, to improve the agriculture
sector and its productivity, there is an urgent need to improve its labour
force. Studies for rural labour will therefore assist stakeholders in
understanding its compositions and the ways of
improving/strengthening it.
2. At the same time, rural youth (especially the above-bodied men and
the educated) acts as a reservoir for urban or industrial labour force.
Thus, for the urban employers to understand the dynamics of its labour
force better with a view of manipulating it for their benefit, they should
critically study rural labour.
3. In the current economic cycles, rural-urban migration has become a
great menace to many countries, economic growth. This has become
about because of the rapid exodus/movement of the rural energetic
labour to the urban centers in search of employment. In the process, a
lucky few get absorbed and the majority spends most of their resourceful
times idling or underemployed. At the same time, the agriculture lands
in the areas they come from remain redundant and whose, the limited
urban/public amenities become constraint. To reverse this trend, its roots
causes and solutions to the same need to be seriously addressed
through rural labour studies.
4. The problem of poverty as in the recent past and until to date been a
problem of concern globally. Coincidentally, those living in the rural
areas (including the rural labour) are the hardest hit. Thus since the rural
labour forced is the key player in most of African states in terms of
translating the rich resources in these countries into higher economic
growth rates, and possibly eradicating poverty, ways and means of
equipping this labour force with appropriate skills need to be sorted out.

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5. Women play a great and important role in agricultural and rural

development. Women are also seen to constitute a large portion of the
rural labour force with the men migrating to urban areas in search of
better and well-paying jobs. However, these same women are
powerless in terms of not being accessible to the free use of the
household resources and securities due to cultural beliefs and attitudes.
For rural development to be realized therefore this scenario should be
reversed so as to make the women functional and this is only possible
through rural-urban studies.

Characteristics of Rural Labour

1. Skewed Sexual division of labour: There is over employment of

women since the rural-urban migration has deprived these areas of
men. Thus, the women are left in-charge of the farm and hence, they
carry out male oriented agricultural tasks such as cleaning, fencing
and the like. They also become the major decision makers in the rural
areas.
2. There is rigidity of rural labour movement. Workers looking for
employment are rigidly bound to their localities because of social
and economic factors. The social aspects could include the feeling
of jealousy towards the better off (employers), cultural factors
forbidding far distant movements etc. Whereas the economic
aspect is largely the cost of travelling from one place to another
3. Agricultural extension practices and policies have been biased since
colonial times. During these times, men were only allowed to go out
and learn and practice extension activities. The women since then
have therefore assumed making role in decision making especially
on issues regarding farm use and utilization. However, the trend has
changed today with most of the females practicing or offering the
extension services after training.

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4. The labour force of the family is enhanced by the establishment of a

household through the bearing of children and further marriages
among the children.
5. Labour is demanded in the form of peaks and troughs according to
their agricultural calendar. There are those periods of the year when
labour is highly demanded and other periods when less demanded.
At peak periods, labour demanded often exceeded family labour
supply and these periods coincide with the time when the family
supply of food goes down due to the large demand for labour and
hence, no time to produce food for the family’s consumption.
6. At the peak periods, the small-scale farmer is forced to sell his labour
at an exploitative price to the progressive farmers and hence, leaving
his land uncultivated. Parents are even forced to hire out their
children labour to the progressive farmers in exchange of food.
7. During the trough periods, labour supply exceeded the demand and
some communities engage themselves in various cultural activities
such as circumcision, dances and marriage ceremonies.

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Rural-Urban Migration

Migration is the movement of a community/person(s) from one geographical

region to another, which may be permanent or temporary in nature. Rural-
urban migration therefore is the movement of a community person(s) from rural
to urban areas.

Who are Migrants?

A migrant is a person who has changed his membership from a particular

population/region to another separated by space and time. For one to be
considered a migrant, the following need to be taken into account:

a. The time period the person has stayed in the new place.
b. Whether the person has changed his place of abode or residence
permanently.

Thus, the higher the time period, the lower the volume of migrants i.e if people
stay in a place for a long duration, the number of people found to move about
tends to reduce and vice versa.

Characteristics of Migrants

a) Studies have shown that rural-urban migration is selective of the males

i.e the majority of the urban in-migrants are men. For example, the 1969
national population census showed that in Nairobi, every two males
there was a female. This male’s predominance in the migration process
and the tendency of the marriage men to leave their wives in the rural
areas as the tendency of depriving rural households of male heads i.e
absentee household heads. This therefore will imply that the sex ratios in
the urban areas are high due to the male’s predominance.
b) The young: The younger men and an increasing number of young
women who migrate to the urban areas, as they are the ones ready to

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move and ready to take risks that the old. The (young) are the ones who
feel that they have a longer period to correct the rural urban differentials
i.e they feel they are able to collect and acquire high incomes to boost
the rural income brackets through remittance to parents and relatives
back home. They are also more adventurers than the older people
and they migrate on attempt to acquire/realize their ambitions. Some
of them even would wish to break with their parents and hence,
graduate into adulthood and freedom.
c) The educated: Studies by J.C Caldwell (1968) showed that rural-urban
migration increases with education of both men and women. The
studies found out that women with no schooling were more likely to stay
at home than men. But that even few years in primary school brought
women migration closer to that of men. It is therefore likely that the rate
of migration will increase over time as the people’s levels of education
rises. This is where you will find a primary school leaver choosing to live
at a town near him/her than studying in the interior rural home.
d) The divorces and the singles. Most of the migrants are either divorces or
singles or unmarried. These are found to migrate to urban areas in
search of employment and they can even stay for long periods there as
they have not families for sustain back home.
e) The landless: Majority of the migrants are landless and have no
prospects of inheriting any land. Research shows than these are
relatively few men who do farming prior to migration. The reason being
that 70% of the men in the study sample did not have land. Furthermore,
approximately half of these landless migrants no longer had father or
their fathers did not have land. Therefore, greater than a third 1/3 of the
migrants were landless and had no prospects for inheriting one.
f) The law breakers/society wrong doers who evade arrest or ridicule from
the society members.

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Causes of Rural-Urban Migration

The following are some of the major causes of rural-urban migrations.

1. The inter-relationship existing in the society: These includes friends,

relatives etc. The social structure encourages the rural residents to
migrate/move because they depend on relatives and friends living
in the urban areas. The feeling that there are more job opportunities
and training facilities in the urban areas than in the rural areas could
inspire the move. When such individuals move to the urban areas,
friends or relatives provide them with cushion for cultural shocks i.e
problems of adjustments, which could be due to in contract with
different cultures.
2. Socialization Process: This could include the nature of school training
and education guide that the potential migrant received. In most
cases, individuals develop white-colour job mental and hence, they
young aspire to move to the urban areas to search for a job.
3. Parental aspirations and expectations towards their children: Most
parents encourage their children to move from the rural areas to
urban areas after schooling expecting them to secure a job so as to
boost their living conditions. Many parents belief that urban areas
provide more opportunities in their children than the rural areas in life
matters. This coupled with the educational system stimulates the
movement of these young people to the urban areas. Most parents
take the task of educating their children as an investment and this
makes their children to aspire very much to acquire more wealth after
schooling and hence, the tendency among the children to move to
urban areas.
4. Socio-cultural factors: The migrants could move to urban areas in
search of status and prestige, which could be met through the
acquisition of better and well-paying jobs.

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5. The movement could also come about due to the need by the
young to break form the elders and hence, become initiated to
manhood/adulthood.
6. Population pressure – Lack of enough farm land for all in the family
stimulate the movement of young people to the urban areas.

Costs/Consequences of Rural-Urban Migration

1. When most men migrate, and especially the young and able, farms
are chiefly managed by women, old men and children. An
equivalent transfer of decision-making about farm affairs does not
accompany this to women. Thus, the inability of the women to make
critical decision reduces the ability of the farm to adopt new ideas.
This reduces the rate of rural change.
2. The accompanying increase in urban population is unmatched by
the generation of employment in urban centers. This leads to open
unemployment, urban poverty, and crime and creates potential for
social unrest.
3. Increased break-ups of households due to males establishing
concubine homes in the urban areas. This leads to bringing up of
children without a father image and hence the children are in
adequately socialized making them to be deviant as they grow up.
4. Economic costs of rural-urban migration related to the increased
costs of urban housing and other services such as education, medical
facilities etc. Due to the large urban population the provision of
social services becomes constrained/depleted.
5. Scarcity of labour in the rural areas due to the migration of the young
(productive) people and the most innovative. This brings about a
high dependency ratio in the rural areas and thus the continued
under development of the rural areas or peasants.

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Suggested Solutions/Remedies to Rural-Urban Migration

Ref: Mbithi, P. (1974), Rural Sociology and Rural development

a) Cash Crop Farming: This will help to boost rural incomes and hence,
minimize the rural incomes and rural-urban migration. It has been
argued that an increased farm technology transferred to the
peasant farmer coupled with farmer training, farm loans and subsides
would increase farm productivity. Increased farm productivity would
led to more job creations at the farm level, and hence increasing
incomes and household living standards. The reasons given are as
follows.
b) Increased Technology transfer to peasant farm would lead to the
introduction of new cash crops which would substantially increase
incomes, or the introduction to practices which reduce crop and
animal losses, or increase yields for small additional costs. These
would stabilize and increase, farmers incomes. As farm incomes
increase, farmers would become better of and withdraw from
manual tasks, thus creating a demand for hired labour and
increasing the population’s absorptive capacity or rural areas.
c) Adoption of new non-farm enterprises by farmers so as to increase
the range of enterprises per farm. This tends to increase the diversity
of tasks performed and the reigning stable wage ratios would
increase the farm labour capacity.
d) Good infrastructural facilities should be provided.
e) Agricultural credit facilities should be extended to the farmers to
enable them improve their farms.

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