Rural to rural migration and employment:A case study in a selected area of Kenya

Abstract

This study sets out to probe into the question of why people migrate from one rural area to another in Machakos District. It also deals with the question of who migrates and how he migrates. The findings of the study were that rural migrants are landless or near landless, they produce very little or no subsistence crops before migrating. They are under 50 years of age and have very little or no education./ The migrants usually migrate with their families to the areas of destination for the ! majority of them are married. (JFhey also prefer migrating out to the areas where their kinsmen have gone to settle at.^ Another factor that influences migration is the environmental one. Hence drought, famine and soil unproductivity (infertility) do in some cases cause people to migrate for the environmental problems - calamities - reduce the capacity of a given piece of land to produce enough subsistence for the family. The migrants therefore decide to migrate to areas where they can get land or larger pieces of land. They are interested primarily with selfIll employment in agriculture at subsistence level. But later on they begin to establish business enterprises. Several implications arise from those research findings and are discussed in Chapter 7 whore possible solutions to the problems of rural to rural migration are suggested.