Family planning fertility and migration in urban space a case study of bhubaneswar city in eastern india

Abstract

Cities are hubs of social, economic, and political activities and draw both internal and international migrants. Urbanization and migration are inter-related processes. Migration as the key component of rapid increase in population in cities in India. Mostly, migrants from rural areas settle in slums and squatter settlements in the cities. The contribution of natural increase to urban growth has been declining while the contribution of rural to urban migration has been continuously rising. In some regions of the developing world, migration surpasses fertility as the key determinant of population growth. Further, urban migrants indirectly contribute to the growth of the urban population through their reproductive behaviour. Due to the high proportion of male migration in urban areas, migration studies have long been mainly focused on male migration, but recently, the focus has shifted more to females because of feminization of migration . Urbanisation and migration are two interrelated processes and both have independent effects on fertility too. The process of migration, mainly in urban areas of developing countries, plays an important role in changing demographic, socio-economic and culture aspects of destination. These changes in demographic, socio-economic and cultural attributes can have an impact on fertility. Further, migrants who reside in slums exhibit reproductive behaviour that is distinct from migrants in non-slum areas and non-migrants in urban areas. As urban women often have lower fertility rates than rural women, there is a need to know whether migration itself influences the reproductive behaviour of migrants in urban places or whether associated demographic, socioeconomic and cultural factors affect the fertility of migrants. For a better understanding of the dynamics of the future population in destination areas, it is crucial to study the fertility pattern of migrants. Apart from this, there is also a scope of study on whether the migration process itself is associated with changes in fertili