A note on unemployment and labor migration in less developed countries: a diagrammatic illustration
Mehmet, O.
American Journal of Agricultural Economics 58(2): 351-354
1976
ISSN/ISBN: 0002-9092 DOI: 10.2307/1238993Document Number: 519660
In recent years there has been considerable attention devoted to the perplexing fact of significant rural to urban migration in the face of large urban unemployment in LDCs. This note presents a simple two-sector model of unemployment equilibrium in an attempt to offer an economic rationale for this curious fact. The model implies a trade-off process between disguised unemployment in the urban sector. In addition, the note takes explicit and full account of the influence of seasonal fluctuations in farming activities on labour demand and wage determination and the extended family system that performs the dual functions of setting the supply price of labour in the urban sector and giving rise to a system of income maintenance that is financed significantly out of cash remittances from the urban to the rural sector.