Comparative Social Problem

Paper #2
Course: ANSO 1050
Professor: Andre Celeti
Student: Dilnora Tursunova (5T)
Risks Of Migrating To Urban Areas

Migration is the movement of people from one country, basically a place of residence to

another one (OMS, 2023). Humanity always tends to live in a settling life mode and move to

different places for different purposes. However, with today’s globalization and industrialization

era, migration become more available. Chasing the ambitions of better life standards, more and

more people are leaving their homes in rural areas where their ancestors used to live and moving

to urban cities. The flow of many people coming to cities can contribute to flourishment,

whereas oppositely it can also lead to many other issues including unemployment, high crime

rate or environmental degradation. This essay will highlight what risks migrants face and try to

give possible solutions for countries that currently face the negative effects of urban migration.

For several centuries, people have moved from rural places to cities due to various reasons,

such as lack of safety, and economic and social opportunities. According to International

Migration Hub research: rural populations, whose livelihoods depend on agriculture, are

particularly vulnerable to migration pressures. They are more exposed, have high natural

resource dependency and limited ability to cope with and manage risk (2017). The migration can

result the problems both in places where they left or in areas where they moved to. The issues

can vary from social, economic, and political to demographic. From a social point of view,
migrants can increase the diversity among city residents but at the same time, differences

between migrants and citizens can result in cultural conflicts or discrimination. Migrants from

rural areas are more vulnerable to discrimination and exploitation as many of them are

considered poorer, lower in social status and illiterate compared with habitants of cities (Reddy,

2018). For example, in China, many migrants from rural to urban do not have equal access to

public welfare and social services, as they are usually treated as second-class citizens (Deng Z,

Law YW, 2020). As stated above migrants need to be ready to deal with several problems,

especially, if they decide to move with their families, which is even more challenging and

responsible. Many families could not overcome fights and problems caused by money shortages,

so eventually they split up (Migration Research Hub, 2023). Also when women or elderly people

migrate to cities from rural areas finding a job could be more difficult because of gender and age

discrimination. So in my view, most families, females and senior citizens are negatively

impacted by urban migration.

Regarding economic problems that migrants can face when moving to urban cities are

unemployment and poverty. The bigger the city is, the more competition when it comes to taking

a job, receiving education or healthcare. Many migrants dream about a better life in cities while

they underestimate the high living costs, including expenditure on housing and basic needs. Rigg

et al., (2014), found that among rural migrants, labour is often the only source of income, and

they often take on informal sector jobs which often involve significant risk. In case of illness or

“force major” situations, migrants could lose substantial amounts of earnings and later expenses

for treatment might cause the indebtedness of migrants. Without the right to afford proper

housing, more than 700 million people who live in urban environments live without improved

sanitation, which in turn contributes to poor health (Zurich, 2023). Therefore, many rural
migrants suffer from unemployment and poverty, which later can lead to a high increase in crime

rates in cities.

Migration and urban poverty

Poverty is the inability to afford the basic needs of humans and globally it is estimated with

the poverty index which varies from country to country. There are different types of poverty,

including urban poverty which refers to a set of economic and social difficulties that exist in

industrial cities (Hila, 2020). Rural-to-urban migration could be the reason for increased urban

poverty and worsened income distribution, but restriction on migrant workers on social services

and lower wages can lead to an increase the poverty in cities. Many migrants end up working in

the informal sector because they have low levels of education, therefore wages and job security

are low resulting in high levels of poverty. Also forced migration can cause urban poverty. For

example, in India alone, some 20 million people are estimated to have been displaced over about

40 years, the majority of whom became impoverished while in China over a similar period, well

over 30 million were displaced (Skeldon, 1997).

Informal housing

Another problem is many migrants cannot afford proper housing in the cities, so they start to

move outskirts and build informal accommodations, which lack access to basic facilities such as

sanitation, clean water and energy. The factors for the emergence of slums can be many, but

uncontrollable migration to urban areas is one of them. In today’s world, over half of the urban

population in lower-income countries and a total of 863 million people globally are

accommodated in informal settlements (Varis et al, 2019). The main reasons for the rapid

development of informal shelters are low urban planning and inadequate housing systems. The

consequences of a slum establishment could be destructive. As in slums, large amounts of

population crammed into little space, they are more prone to emergencies such as floods or fire.

Poor living conditions in informal shelters affect the health of inhabitants and cause illnesses like

diarrhoea, malaria or poisoning. From a social point of view, the isolation of slums from urban

society can lead to drug abuse or increased crime rate, which later extend and create problems

even in city centres. The traditional solution to decrease the number of emerging slums could be

rebuilding the infrastructure with proper water, electricity and sewage access. For example,

recently a new project was established based in Kolkata, India to improve the slums so they can

meet the criteria of the New Urban Agenda. They do it by giving people addresses so that

civilians living there could have official recordings and postcodes of homes. It will help the

government to map people and collect the data on the scale (Pigot, 2017). Compared with India,

China has fewer slums in urban areas and there are a few reasons behind this. In the past times,

villages have the part of urban cities, known as farmer cities and the continuous expansion of

cities caused rural collective land to be transformed into urban land. Because of the property

rights in China, the security and legality of farmhouses were guaranteed. Also, China strictly

controls what has been built in those areas, while India is for private ownership of the land.

It should not be forgotten that cities that receive many migrants can also face many

problems. First of all, the vivid effect of migration is a rapid increase in population in cities. As

inhabitants increase, space shortage becomes the main problem. The authorities either need to

pay attention to the number of insufficient accommodations, or migrants can build city villages

or slums as happened in Mumbai, India. As stated above, self-made slums usually cannot be

regulated by authorities and randomly built houses without a plan cause many infrastructural

problems. Population density results in higher demand for transportation and more job places

that city management needs to deal with. Also, it can lead to serious environmental issues, as air
quality gets worse with a huge number of people and cars. For example, the World Bank

estimates that by 2050, climate change could force the internal migration of over 200 million

people, most of whom would move to these already densely populated urban areas (Zurich,

2023). Furthermore, with rising demand, city residents will have less access to social services

such as education or healthcare.

Despite all the evidence listed above, I believe that migration is not as bad as many people

assume. Migration is an issue of the XXI century that should be approached correctly. If it is

well-managed by authorities that prepare an action plan or socio-economic development strategy,

the benefits of urban migration outweigh the risks, as it is stated above with examples from

China and India. Since the risks are interconnected, the key approach should be collaboration

among government, business and communities.

References:

Meghana Reddy, 2018, Challenges of migrants in the cities. Times of India

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/readersblog/to-be-or-not-to-be/challenges-of-migrants-in-
the-cities-884/

Xuefei Ren, 2022, Urbanization, Migration and Families in China and India. The UN

https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2022/10/2022-Ren-UN-
memo-V2-Sep-12.pdf

Ramanath Jha, 2023, Hastening rural to urban migration: A national imperative, Observer
Research Foundation

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/hastening-rural-to-urban-migration/

Zurich, 2023

https://www.zurich.com/en/knowledge/topics/global-risks/the-risks-of-rapid-urbanization-in-
developing-countries

Migration Research Hub, 2023

https://migrationresearch.com/taxonomies/topics-migration-consequences-for-migrants-sending-
and-receiving-countries-socio-economic-consequences-socio-economic-inequality-mobility-and-
migration

OMS, Our Migration Story, 2023

https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/about/what-is-migration.html

Deng Z, Law YW. Rural-to-urban migration, discrimination experience, and health in China:

Evidence from propensity score analysis

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7769422/#:~:text=Indeed%2C%20such

%20migrants%20are%20frequently,also%20faced%20other%20social%20discrimination.

Ana Belén Cano-Hila, 2023, Urban Poverty

https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780190922481/obo-

9780190922481-0037.xml
Ronald Skeldon, 1997, Rural to Urban Migration and its Implication for Poverty Alleviation

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/

11130095_Rural_to_Urban_Migration_and_its_Implication_for_Poverty_Alleviation

Alex Pigot, 2017, Slum transformation: a project to put temporary dwellings on the map

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/04/how-do-

you-upgrade-slums-a-new-system-is-literally-going-house-to-house#:~:text=The%20traditional

%20solution%20is%20to,house%20the%20slum%20dwellers%20there.