Abstract:
Rural-urban migration is the movement of people from rural areas (villages) to urban
centers (cities). Internal migration and net migration to urban areas in particular, drives
the excessive urbanization, unemployment, income inequalities, ecological stress and
population mal-distribution. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to investigate the
cause and social impact of rural-urban migration on town dwellers’ of Wolaita Sodo
town. The study employed descriptive survey design. Three hundred eighty eight (388)
respondents (259, dweller household and 129 migrant household) were selected with
stratified random sampling technique to fill questionnaire. Whereas the study employed
purposive sampling technique for qualitative part to choose 8 KI (three kebele
administrators and 5 sector head office such as municipal head, educational head, health
office head, police office head, and social affair head) and 2 Focus Group
discussants(one from migrant and another from dweller). The study used close ended
questionnaire to collect quantitative data, whereas employed semi-structured interview
for qualitative data. Quantitative data were analyzed by descriptive statistics including
frequency and percentage. Qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis method.
Based on the findings, it was concluded that first, the fundamental cause of migration in
the study area was rural pushing factors such as high population density in rural area,
and agricultural constraints and urban pulling factors such as searching of educational
facility, searching job, and to open up/extended business. Secondly, the social impact on
town dweller was polluting the beauty of the town, lack of access to housing, interaction
of inadequate social services with dwellers, inadequate amenities, rising cost of living
results difficulty in accessing consumer goods, difficulty to get job, expansion of
crime/robbery, and expansions of informal urban sectors. Finally, the possible ways out
to the problem are engaging governments, specific sectors, non-governmental
organizations, civil societies, and individuals in order to minimize these inevitable
problems of internal rural-urban migration in both rural and urban area.
