Rural-Urban Migration, Crop Productivity and Multidimensional Poverty among Households in Gurage Zone, SNNPR, Ethiopia

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Date

2022-11

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Human migration and its consequences are being studied as a global development issue. Analytical data on these topics is critical for the government, and scientific research is continually needed to address knowledge gaps. This dissertation investigated the link between rural-urban migration, crop productivity, and multidimensional poverty in Ethiopia's Gurage Zone. The dissertation, specifically, investigated the determinants of rural-urban migration, conducted a comparative analysis based on technical efficiency and multidimensional poverty index, and investigated the impact of rural-urban migration on household livelihood security, multidimensional poverty, and households' productive efficiency. 384 rural households from three different agro-ecological zones were selected using multistage sampling to collect both quantitative and qualitative cross-sectional data. Descriptive statistics and econometric models such as ivprobit, multidimensional poverty index; propensity score matching; dose response function, and stochastic production frontier models were employed to analyze the quantitative data. The results of ivprobit regression revealed that livestock ownership, family size, access to information, number of cultivated fields, soil fertility, distance to the nearest town, and distance to the farmers’ training center are all important determinants of rural-urban migration. The dose response model revealed that remittance has a positive significant effect on household livelihood security with a local minimum dose of roughly 40%. The mean technical efficiency of non-migrant households, migrant-sending households, and total samples is 45.5%, 72.3%, and 57.4%, respectively. The household head's age and distance from a neighboring town have a detrimental effect on technical efficiency, whereas schooling, soil infertility, migratory experience, and distance to a nearby market have a positive impact. Rural-urban migration results in a 19.4% decrease in crop productivity for households that send migrants. The mean total factor productivity of migrant-sending, non-migrant, and pooled samples, respectively, was 9.87, 10.23, and 10.03. The adjusted headcount ratio of the non-migrant households and migrant-sending households was 19.8% and 10.5 %, respectively. Poverty affects 43.5% of nonmigrant households and 25% of migrant-sending households. Non-migrant households and migrant-sending households contributed 70.5% and 29.5%, respectively, to the adjusted headcount ratio of the total sample. The finding indicate that household size and the educational level of the household heads are significant and positively associated with households’ multidimensional poverty, whereas the number of migrant household members and livestock ownership are negatively associated with households’ multidimensional poverty .The average poverty-reduction effect of rural-urban migration is 4.7% for migrant-sending households, with a 0.6% counterfactual outcome. Overall, this study discovered that rural-urban migration is caused by a variety of factors and has a beneficial influence on poverty reduction but a negative impact on agricultural productivity. Regulating the underlying causes of rural-urban migration as well as its impact on crop production and household poverty reduction requires the active participation of all stakeholders. Various specific recommendations are made to stakeholders for the successful management of rural-urban migration and its advantages in enhancing local programs related to crop production enhancement and multidimensional poverty reduction in the study area.

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Keywords

Rural-urban migration, crop-productivity, multidimensional poverty, Gurage zone, Ethiopia.

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