Diffusion of International Emigration across the Urban Hierarchy in Developing Countries

Mathias Lerch, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (epfl-eth)
Wenxiu Du, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (epfl-eth)
Dorothee Beckendorff, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne (epfl-eth)

International emigration concerns a growing number of developing countries, which are experiencing a fast process of urbanization. Although urbanization transforms the sending countries’ socio-economic geographies, comparative evidence on subnational patterns of emigration is lacking. We test the mobility transition (or migration hump) hypothesis by analyzing trends over the course of urbanization in the rates of emigration from more than 1’000 distinct cities and 10’000 rural settlements in 40 developing countries between 1971 and 2017. We combine census data with indirect demographic estimation techniques and rely on remote sensing products to consistently define the cities’ spatial extents. Poisson models with country fixed effects confirm a diffusion down the urban hierarchy of the propensity to emigrate, leading to a series of lagged hump-shaped subnational trends. In early stages of urbanization, emigration is highest in cities – especially in the largest and smallest ones. In the middle of the process, rural emigration reaches its peak with particularly high levels from the urban hinterland and international borders. In the end of urbanization, emigration is the highest in the densely populated urban hinterland. These preliminary results challenge our understanding of international migration as a mainly rural phenomenon. Implications of the urbanization-emigration nexus will be discussed.

Keywords: International Migration, Geo-referenced/geo-coded data, Census data, Population and Development

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