Metropolitan growth and migration in Peru

Abstract: Abstract: The study deals with the interplay between migration and metropolitan growth in Peru during the last decades. The key question is to what extent Peru's rural-urban migration and rapid urban growth is triggered by opportunities within the formal and informal sectors in the growing metropolis of Lima.Aggregated data about migration have been related to information of socioeconomic and geographical conditions in rural and urban areas. Multivariate models of interregional migration are constructed and tested. A study of the life paths of a limited group of migrants has generated hypotheses about causes of migration and the assimilation of migrants in the city.Migration is related to historical changes in Peruvian society and to structural and individual conditions affecting migrants.The historical transformation of the rural and urban sectors is one important precondition for the increasing rural-urban migration in 20th century Peru, including the declining importance of the traditional socio-economic structure (the hacienda system and the peasant communities), population growth, and the increasing importance of capitalistic forms of exchange and production as well as of interregional interaction and non-agrarian sectors.Regional disparities appear to be the most important structural condition affecting migration in Peru, in accordance with the so-called gap-theories, which indicate that changes and conditions in urban areas are more important for temporal and spatial variations in the migration pattern, than corresponding changes in rural areas. Furthermore, young and better educated individuals are overrepresented in the migrant groups and outinigration seems to be highest from rural areas with well-established urban contacts. Urban pull is more important than rural push. The study reveals that personal contacts are essential as a generator of migration, for information flows and for the migrants' adaptation to the urban society. In general, the rural-urban migration can be regarded as a rational adaptation to living conditions in rural and urban areas, since most migrants seem to have a higher living standard in the cities in comparison with their former situation in rural areas.A significant conclusion is that informal solutions are important for solving migrants' housing and subsistence problems. The informal sector is interpreted as an integrated and often dynamic element in the urban economy, rather than as an indicator of over-urbanization. The study provides empirical support for a conjecture termed metropolitan informal sector pull, in which the informal sector of Lima is a major part of the magnet that pulls people from the rural areas and generates metropolitan growth and migration in Peru.