A COMPARISON OF MIGRANTS WITH THE URBAN LABOR FORCE
7 THE ROLE OF URBAN-BASED KIN
For a rwal resident, the move to a city or town involves significant costs as well as the prospects of substantial economic gain. Initially, there is the cost of travel t o a n urban center. Once in town, there is the need t o obtain food and shelter, which typically cost more than in rural areas. Third, there are the costs of the job search. In addition t o such economic costs, there are noneconomic costs which are frequently difficult t o measure (Somers 1967, p. 428). Beyond the costs involved there can be considerable uncertainty associated with the move since according t o our migration model, the probability of obtain- ing employment with the desired level of income is somewhat less than 1 in the cities and towns of Kenya.
The economic costs of the move as well as the employment uncertainty can be reduced significantly if the prospective migrant can rely on a relative o r friend (kin) t o provide assistance during and after a move. According to Weisiler (1976, p. 200): "The likelihood of a particular male homestead member leaving the countryside and coming t o the city depends on two factors: 1) his own perception of the probability of success in obtaining employment in the town; and 2) the nature of the social and economic support available t o the migrant in the country and in the city." Although our migration model is premised on migration from within the context of a rural household, the data collected in the survey were limited t o assistance provided by urban-based kin. As a result, the role of the rural-based members of the extended family in the migration process, as modeled by Mitchell (1959) and documented in detail by Weisner (1972) for one group in Kenya, is not discussed here. Data on contributions made by rural-based members of the household are limited to money sent t o the migrant, which we analyze in Chapter 9 as part of the discussion of rural -urban remittances.
Potentially, kin can provide information about possible destinations, assist in the move by providing transportation, provide housing and food when the migrant first arrives, and assist the new arrival in finding employment. In this chapter we draw on information provided in our survey t o determine the role of kin in assisting the prospective migrant.
First, we consider the information sources about the destination that the respondent has chosen, the material assistance that he received on arrival, and the role of kin in his finding employment.
Second, since some men were unemployed for a considerable time on first arriving in town, we consider how the unemployed subsist. Again, our data were not coded in terms of the formal-informal sector dichotomy featured prominently in the literature that appeared subsequent t o our survey. However, on the basis of our analysis of how the unemployed maintained themselves we seek to addressindirectly the deductive proposition that the urban informal sector serves as the point of entry where recent in-migrants queue for the available formal sector jobs.
SOURCES O F INFORMATION ABOUT URBAN CENTERS
In our migration model both the decision by a household t o dispatch a member t o some external employment opportunity and the selection of a particular urban destination (versus a rural destination or another urban destination) were based on the perception by household members of what was available - income levels, employment prospects, ameni- ties, etc. - in these locations. This perception that we hypothesized wasshaped by: ( I ) the extent of commercial interaction between the household's community and the potential migration destinations, and (2) the extent of previous migration from the community t o these alternative destinations. The latter, according t o Lee (1969, p. 292), creates path- ways "which pass over intervening opportunities as elevated highways pass over country- side." Of course, this holds only for kin who were successful in a particular destination;
those who return home as failures will make intervening obstacles appear t o be larger and intervening opportunities appear t o be more attractive than they might be otherwise (Connell e t al. 1976, p. 7).
As an indicator of the types of information about their selected destination that were utilized by the men, they were asked: "In reaching your decision t o come here you must have had some information about job possibilities, income, living conditions, etc.
Which of the following gave you the most information?" (Question 8). The men were provided with seven possible sources: newspaper, radio, Labour Exchange, family mem- bers, friends, school teacher, and career counselor. After indicating the most important source, the respondent was asked to identify the second and then the third most important source of information.
TABLE 7.1 The percentage distribution of the primary sources o f information about the urban migration destinations.
Sources of Education Ages - Friends and relatives Total
information were primary
Primary Secondary 15-22 23-50
"pull" force
sample Newspapers
Radio
Labour Exchange Family members Friends School teacher Career counselor Other sources
Total
As indicated in Table 7.1, 6 7 percent of the men ranked either family member or friends as their most important source of information. (In their Sierra Leone survey Byerlee et al. (1976, p. 50) also found that two-thirds of the migrants drew their information about town from relatives and friends in these towns.) For a valid chi-square test, the eight rows in Table 7.1 were combined into four - media (rows 1 -3), family, friends, and other
sources (the last 3 rows). The variation in the distribution of the information sources between the two education groups and between the two age groups was significant. The younger men rely relatively more on family members and the older men receive more infor- mation from friends. Also, the younger men rely somewhat more on the media, especially newspapers. The men with secondary education have a marked tendency to depend more on sources other than relatives and friends.
The variation in the distribution of these four types of information sources among the eight urban centers was also statistically significant. The men in Nairobi, Thika, and Nyeri show proportionately less reliance on family members while men in Nairobi, Kisumu, and Nyeri rely proportionately more on friends.
With reference to the second most important source of information, 39 percent of the men listed relatives or friends, and an additional 44 percent did not indicate a second source. Of the men who ranked family members as their first source, 37 percent did not have a second source, 53 percent indicated friends as their second source, 77 percent did not indicate a third source, and 4 percent indicated friends as a third source. Of the men who gave friends as their first source, 39 percent did not have a second source, 74 percent did not have a third source, 38 percent listed relatives as a second source, and 3 percent listed relatives as a third source. Of the remaining categories, "other sources" had the high- est frequency but none appeared prominently in the distribution.
As an additional check on the role of kin as a source of information, the distribution of the primary sources of information is provided in Table 7.1 for men who indicated friends or relatives as their primary "pull" to a particular urban center (Question 7). Several conclusions can be drawn from a comparison of this column with the others in the table.
First, for this subset of the sample, family members are more important and friends are less important than for the total sample. Second, even though the presence of kin was the primary "pull" force t o town, the distribution of the primary sources of information is not very different from the total sample. Therefore, even thpugh kin are available in the urban center, the migrants have and use other information sources. Indeed, the presence of relatives in town may be the stimulus to use the media t o obtain information about a particular center.
The responses t o Question 8 indicate the primary importance of personal informa- tion sources. This result could show that other sources have proved to be inadequate. In his Ghana study, Caldwell(1969, p. 122) notes the failure of the press or radio to portray the realities of everyday life in the towns and cities. A comparable evaluation of Kenya's mass media was not undertaken. The importance of newspapers for men with secondary education and men with primary education indicates that newspapers provide information about urban life for those who have a number of years of formal schooling. With consider- able urban unemployment, it is not surprising that Labour Exchanges fail t o serve as an important source of information about urban centers for men who choose t o take their chances in the urban employment lottery.
Both Caldwell's study for Ghana (1969, p. 122) and the study by Byerlee et al. in Sierra Leone (1976, pp. 50-51) show that urban in-migrants were quite accurately in- formed about their migration destination before they made the move. Although we did not make a direct attempt t o measure the quality of the information received, we did ask the men: "When you first arrived here, what type of work were you hoping to get?"
(Question 9); and, "When you first arrived, how much income did you expect you could earn?" (Question 10).
We find first that the vast majority of the men either expected t o be employed by others (66 percent), or did not have fixed expectations (31 percent). Only 3 percent expected t o be self-employed. Table 7.2 indicates the actual employment experience of the men and the average difference between their expected and actual incomes during the first full quarter after migration. Except for the two men who expected self-employment
TABLE 7.2 The percentage distribution of employment experienced within each type of expected employment and the difference between expected and realized income (KShs./month).
Actual employment Expected ernployment
No fixed Expected Expected
expectations self-employment wage-eniploy ment Self-employed
Percent 17 6 3 14
Income difference 44 3 25 100
Wageemployed
Percent 5 5 3 0 69
Income difference -730 5 0 29
Unemployed
Percent 28 76 17
Income difference 110 - - l o a 3 00
Total
Percent of total sample 3 1 3 66
Income difference 2 219 85
a A negative number indicates that the income realized exceeds the income expected.
b ~ e s s than five observations are involved.
and were still unemployed and the men who were without fixed expectations but did obtain employment, the men earned somewhat less income than they had expected. (For Sierra Leone, Byerlee et al. (1976, p. 51) report: "
. . .
intending migrants . . . perceived earnings higher than migrants in town were actually receiving. There is therefore some evidence that migrants who leave home have somewhat higher perceptions of urban earn- ings than are realistic.") The dominant difference between expectations and reality is for the men expecting to obtain selfemployment and who are selfemployed. Also, there is considerable difference between the income expectations and reality for men who were still unemployed. Although the average difference between expectations and reality was somewhat larger for the men with secondary education, the difference as a percentage of actual income was greater for the men with primary education. The average income expecta- tions of the men with primary education exceeded actual income by 9 4 percent, while for the men with secondary education the difference was 61 percent and for the total sample the difference was 8 3 percent. It is the younger men, aged 15 to 24, who have expecta- tions most out of line with reality. The men aged 25 t o 29 actually earned, on average, more income during the first full quarter than they had expected.If we examine the actual experience of the employed though, we find that they received income rather similar to what they had expected. The actual income of the men
who expected self-employment but were employed for wages is only 11 percent below their expectations, while the men who expected to be employed for wages earned 8 per- cent less than what they had hoped for. The wide divergence between expectations and reality for men with primary and men with secondary education, as reported above, was caused by an inability to obtain desired employment, not by seriously distorted expecta- tions about income levels in the urban areas.
Therefore, we conclude that the men were rather accurately informed about urban economic possibilities. In general, they were somewhat overly optimistic about incomes at least initially. In part, this optimism may be based on the income experiences of the most successful kin in town, which exceeded average possibilities. It is not surprising that it is the young men and the men with secondary education who have formed unrealistic expectations. It is to be expected that many of them will advance upward on the employ- ment and income scale as they mature and gain experience.