Internal migration in Tanzania: the factors influencing rural-urban youth migration; a case study of Gairo in Kilosa district of Morogoro

This study grew out of an interest in trying to understand the problems which the Government of Tanzania and indeed other government of most LDCs, have been facing since the attainment of their political independences, that of rural-urban youth migration. The core of the problem has been identified as being a developmental imbalance between the rural sector and the country sides itself a colonial creation. Somewhat more specifically, it is an attempt to uncover not only the range of historical conditions under which this problem has been nurtured, but also the motives which prompt, encase, rural populations, particularly the youth, to quit the country-side and flock to the towns. It may be remembered that from the time of Tanzania independence, the leadership has continuously been expressing concern over the trend of youth town ward migration and several attempts have been made in a bid to address this trend. Such attempts included, for example, the Rural settlement Commission Act of 1963, aimed at establishing Village Settlement Schemes in order to facilitate a planned rural development, also the Arusha Declaration of 1967 embodying the policy of socialism and self-reliance and a host of other policy documents including Education for Self Reliance; Socialism and Rural Development Mwongozo of 71, the policy of Decentralization of 1972 and so many others culminating to the most recent Human resources Deployment Act of 1983. All these attempts are measures by the Party and Government, whose main objectives are to bring about rural development and hence remove the imbalance between town and country seem to have borne very little or no fruit, in fact the gap appears to widen further. It is therefore, out of this failure of the earlier measures that this study has been undertaken. In chapter one, we have made an attempt to hypothesize tho nature of the problem of rural-urban migration in Tanzania. Principal argument is that, whenever a rural-urban dichotomy exists there must also be a rural to urban migration pattern. We further hypothesize that, the youth migrate to towns firstly due to low returns obtained in agriculture, particularly due to lack of inputs and inadequate extension services. Secondly, that the youth migrate from the rural areas due to lack of alternative income generating activities in the rural sector. Thirdly, that education for self-reliance has not yet been able to integrate the school leavers with their local environment. Fourthly, that lack of cultural and social welfare amenities in the rural sector motivate the youths to migrate to town centres, and fifthly the stock of urban contacts of a youth, have always acted as motivations for their town ward flow. In the second chapter we have defined migration in general terms and have also outlined rather generally the migrational trends and characteristics in their various dimensions. We have also looked at the nature of migration both during the colonial and post-colonial periods with particular reference to Tanzania. It has been shown in this chapter that rural-urban migration was very negligible during the colonial era, mainly due to the very nature of the colonial capitalist economic development. That is, the colonial rulers were interested in the development of raw material production for their industries in Europe and elsewhere but those raw materials, such as cotton, coffee, sisal, tobacco etc. were produced in the rural areas, for which case any record of people's migration must have been rural-rural i.e. horizontal labour movements from one part of the rural sector to another. Noted also in this chapter is the fact that, in Tanzania, as in other LDCs, there is migration stream, an active participation of young men and women between 15 and 30 years of age, and particularly those with some education. The reasons advanced by many scholars for such a skew include among others, the perversity of our educational system, the dual character of our economy, and the country's development strategies. Chapter three deals with research methodology. We describe in this chapter the field research which was carried out in both Gairo village and Morogoro town. In Gairo village interview schedules were administered to family heads and the youths who were neither students nor employees. Questionnaires were administered to Std. VII pupils of Gairo primary school. Also documentary work was done in the village office as well as the Head teacher's office. And finally, observation and informal discussions were carried out in the village during visits to respondents. In Morogoro town, only the immigrant youths from Gairo, were interviewed, as a follow up study. The findings of the study have been outlined in our fourth chapter, in which responses to interviews and questionnaires have been compiled together with reviews of available data and documents from files at the village and school offices. The greatest number of tables appear in this chapters mainly formulated and constructed to supplement data analysis. In chapter fiver, we have tried to show some conclusions with regard to our research findings and we advance some recommendations in terms of measures which are necessary to prevent the established trend. We have for example concluded that, only a balanced socio-economic development in this country and indeed others in the same category, will be able to curb rural-urban youth migration. In other words, the prevailing developmental imbalance between town and country, must be leveled-out, if the youths have to be retained in rural Tanzania. We have also suggested that while adopting the short term measures, such as those currently pursued in the implementation of the Human Resources Deployment Act e.g. allocation of land to the jobless etc, further researches must be conducted so as to come up with a reasonable comprehensive action plan for a protracted struggle in bringing about a balanced development, and hence to end the rural-urban youth migration.