Migration and rural social structure: An overview

Research on the relationship between migration and social structure has often emphasized the urban context. Studies have focused on the links between development and urbanization, the growth of urban places, the adjustment of migrants in the cities, and the problems associated with movers to various neighborhoods of metropolitan areas. Urbanization has been a major process associated with the modernization of societies and rapid urban growth has been a conspicuous feature of less developed nations. The pursuit of that line of argument tends to neglect the demographic compositional effects of out-migration on rural areas of origin. The compositional effects of out-migration on rural socioeconomic structure relate in complex ways to migratory selectivity along socioeconomic dimensions. The extent of the uprooting effect of migration-particulariy the break with family, kin, and community of origin-depends in part on the type, permanence, and distance of migration and on the whole complex of ties retained by migrants with their places of origin.