Can rural-urban migrants escape from poverty? Evidence from four indonesian cities

Abstract

This study examines the probability of rural-urban migrants in Indonesia living under poverty at destination. The poverty levels is divided into three categories including poor households, near-poor households, and non-poor households, basing on the definition of Indonesian Central Bureau of Statistics’s poverty lines using the expenditure approach. Using Rural-Urban Migration of Indonesia and China (RUMiCI) 2011 data, the findings show that migrants tend to be categorized as non-poor as compared to non-migrants. The important factors that help migrants to escape from poverty include education of household heads, the number of dependents, and previous working experience in the modern sectors.