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A systems model of rural-urban migration in Nigeria

University of British Columbia

Rural-urban migration in Nigeria is the cause of a number of problems; the problems of overcrowding and deterioration of the urban environment associated with rapid urban growth; the economic loss resulting from the high unemployment rates in urban areas; and the problem of adverse implications of prolonged periods of frustration among the urban, poor. Nigerian governments .recognize that rural-urban migration calls for more effective policies than those attempted in the past. In this context new approaches designed to foster greater understanding of the nature of this process and more effective policies should be helpful. This thesis proceeds on the premise that rural-urban migration is in reality a process within a complex socio-economic system consisting of many interacting components and significant feed-back effects. It is thus held that a General Systems Approach provides an appropriate and useful analytical framework for the study of this process. In addition to bringing a broader perspective to the analysis, a systems framework is a powerful tool for exploratory research and therefore well suited both to the promotion of a greater understanding of the process and for the generation of a number of initial policy considerations. Relying on material from existing literature and personal experience related to the process in south-eastern Nigeria, a model of rural-urban . migration is developed in Chapter 4 (Figures 4.1 and 4.2), and applied in Chapter 5 to derive a series of testable hypotheses related to the migration process. The methodology is demonstrative of a systematic procedure for generating a series of interrelated potential policies for shaping the process. The main thrust of the work is to develop a conceptual systems model of the rural-urban migration process and thus to lay a foundation for further, substantive research on rural-urban migration in Nigeria. In the concluding chapter, some directions for this future research have been sketched.

Text

2010-01-22

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/18925

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University of British Columbia

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