Abstract

NYONI, Gracious  and  KOLLAMPARAMBIL, Umakrishnan. Rural-urban migration and the well-being of the migrant-sending households: An impact evaluation study. S. Afr. j. econ. manag. sci. [online]. 2022, vol.25, n.1, pp.1-12. ISSN 2222-3436.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/sajems.v25i1.4120.

BACKGROUND: Rural-urban migration is largely depicted as a household survival strategy, yet rigorous quantitative studies to uncover its impact on the sending households is rare AIM: The study aims to assess the causal impacts of rural-urban migration on sending households' economic and subjective well-being (SWB SETTING: The context of the analysis is South African rural-urban migration using the National Income Dynamics Study panel data METHODS: A range of methods are used to increase the consistency and precision of estimates, namely: Ordinary Least Squares, Fixed Effects, Difference in Differences, Difference in Differences with Propensity Score Matching and Difference in Differences with instrumental variables, controlling for pertinent issues such as fixed effects, self-selection and endogeneity RESULTS: Our econometric analysis reveals a positive correlation between migration and the SWB of the sending household. This effect can be attributed to a range of factors discussed in the study, one of which is the positive association observed between the migration of a household member and the origin household's economic well-being. This upswing in economic well-being is captured by increasing the sending household's monthly income per capita and increased remittance inflows CONCLUSION: From our analysis, we can infer that the improvement in economic well-being offsets the psychological effects of separation, thus leading to the enhanced SWB of the migrant-sending households in South Africa

Keywords : rural-urban migration; impact evaluation; internal migration; subjective well-being; remittances; South Africa.

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