The impact of rural to urban labour migration on rural family roles: a case study of kisa location of kakamega district
Abstract
This study was not on migration. It sought to look at the
impact of rural to urban labour migration on the roles of
the rural family.
Migration was related to the role acting as migration was
seen as one demographic processes that has played and
continues to play a key role on the demographic composition
of both the urban and rural areas.
In the Problem statement, migration is related to family
roles in a bid to explain some aspects of the rural social
setting. Few if any studies have been devoted to this
area.
From the literature reviewed, it was noted that rural to
urban labour migration has had an effect that was both
negative and positive to the places of origin and places of
destination of the migrants. While some of the migrants
tends to support their families, rural to urban labour
migration tends to not only increase urban housing
pressure, urban unemployment but also affects role
performance in the rural family.
A detailed description of the area of study and the
sampling techniques was given. A total of 200 respondents
were interviewed. 100 respondents had migrants heads of
household and 100 had the heads of household who were non
migrants. The sampling frame was the 1989 census of
household sub-location register.
The household was used as the sampling unit while 'the
housewife was the unit of analysis. A systematic random
sampling method was used in selecting the respondents.
The study attempted a univariate descriptive analysis of
migrants and non migrants families in family role
performance and migration. The major focus has been left
with the overwhelming responsibility of providing its
members with food. The family members have had to do with
lack of adequate income, lack of proper infrastructure and
continue to use rudimentary tools like the hoe in food
production.
There has been an attempt to look at some of the rural
family roles and who performs them most often, thus
hypothesising that rural to urban labour migration was the
cause of the early school dropout, juvenile delinquency in
children and overworking of the rural woman, chi-square and
contingence coefficient to test our hypothesis. The
results revealed that rural to urban labour migration was
related to the overworking of the rural woman. It was also
found out that there was no direct relationship between
rural to urban labour migration and juvenile delinquency in
children and school drop out.
Unlike most of the studies on migration which concentrated
on the migrant or his place of destination in this study
interest has been on the rural family members. The bone
of contention in the study is that the exodus to urban
areas by mostly the men affects the rural family's unity,
stability, kinship ties and population mechanisms. The
role structure and performance is affected adversely
leading to role conflicts and overworking of women. This
has by implication far reaching effects on the general
development of the area affected by rural to urban labour
migration.
The findings reveal that something needs to be done to the
rural areas in order to encourage reverse migration. with
the District Focus for Rural Development strategy,
impressive measures have been taken by the government and
policy makers to curb rural labour migration. The rural
East Kisa family remains poverty stricken and affected by
rural to urban labour migration.
In conclusion the study asserts, that the rural woman and
her family is overworked due to the migration of the males.
This consequently makes her to be mostly in the home taking
care of the family. without her involvement and entire
participation in the process of rural development, like
starting income generating projects, the general
development of East Kisa location and Butere in general
will continue to remain low.