WILBERFORCE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES (WJSS)
ISSN: 2504 – 9232
Volume 10, No. 1, March, 2025
Pages 17-33
DOI: 10.36108/wjss/5202.01.0120
SOCIO-ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF RURAL OUT-MIGRATION AND PATTERNS OF MIGRANTS’ EMPLOYMENT IN KABBA-BUNU LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF KOGI STATE, NIGERIA
ABOLUWAJI DANIEL AYINMORO
Abstract
Around the world, 57.34% of people live in cities. Nigeria’s urbanization rate is still extremely high at an annual rate of 4.3%, primarily as a result of rural out-migration, which has a significant impact on the country’s diminishing agricultural employment. Prior research on urbanization has mostly concentrated on its trends and challenges, giving little consideration to the socioeconomic factors that influence rural out-migration and the employment patterns of migrants at their destinations. This paper bridges this gap in knowledge. Lee and Harris-Todaro’s migratory models including structuration theory provided the framework. A non-experimental survey research design was adopted to randomly sample 402 rural out-migrants among five purposively selected rural migrants’ streams in Kabba town, Kogi State (Nigeria). Results showed that although education (29.4%) and employment opportunities (29.4%) were the most common motivating factors influencing migrants’ decisions to move to the city, but due to their inability to secure reasonable white collar jobs at the destinations, new patterns of employments were formed, ranging from part-time to non-engagement in agricultural employment. This suggests that migratory policies that will engender urban deindustrialisation and rural development should be advocated.
Keywords: Rural out-migration, voluntary migration and employment