Urban Slum Upgrading, Migration and Household Structure

Abstract

Developing countries spend significant amounts of their budgets annually on urban slum upgrading activities, but rigorous evidence on the impact of these programs and the mechanisms behind is very limited. Migration is a critical component to any upgrading activity. The migration theory explaining how households choose between living in rural areas and moving to urban settlements is well established; however, the empirical evidence supporting this claim is still lacking. This project utilizes unique data from three World Bank slum upgrading projects - Limpopo and the Free State in South Africa and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania - to examine the relationship between upgrading intervention and migration or household structure change. All three projects show that household sizes increased after the upgrading intervention. I find that in Limpopo, households in the treatment area have significantly higher number of children, which echoes the literature that slum upgrading makes people bring their children from their rural hometown due to the improved living environment. In Free State, the difference between receiving top structure without sanitation and receiving full service is not significant. For treatment areas in Limpopo and households receiving upgrading earlier in Free State, there is a higher ratio of extended family members and lower ratio of immediate family members