The Socioeconomic High-resolution Rural-Urban Geographic Dataset on India (SHRUG)
This research aims to assemble sources of data to study the impacts of urban growth on rural development, migration and slum formation
Abstract
Rapid urbanization and declining rural poverty are central features of many developing countries today, but there is little research on their relationship, especially on the impacts of rapid urbanization on peri-urban and rural areas close to cities. Rural areas are expected to benefit from urban growth, but it is unclear whether these benefits take place via labor markets, goods markets or rural-to-urban migration. There are many channels through which cities and their hinterlands are connected, but there is little research on the impact of urban growth on the rural hinterland; most of the current research focuses on structural transformation and the effects of agricultural productivity growth on cities rather than the reverse channel.
Identifying mechanisms through which rapid urbanization can have positive effects on national growth is central to the IGC Cities research agenda. The urban-rural aspect of this problem is important because (i) rural areas are considerably poorer than urban, and there is concern that some are being left behind; and (ii) rural-urban migration is an important factor influencing the structure of rapidly growing cities. The formation of slums is also central to the research question, as slums are often occupied by recent arrivals from the rural hinterland. The research question has significant practical relevance, as policy-makers around the world are grappling with rapid urbanization, and will benefit from understanding how to help areas outside of cities benefit from rapid urban growth. This project will estimate the (causal) impacts of urban growth on rural economic activity, productivity, poverty and migration, and will test between different mechanisms by which rural firms and households are affected by urban growth.
The authors propose to assemble 2 major new sources of data on urban India to support a study on the causal impacts of urban growth on rural development, rural-to-urban migration, and slum formation. These data sources are the urban Socioeconomic and Caste Census, which contains demographic, asset, income and occupation data for all Indian households, and the 2012 Economic Census, which is an enumeration of every firm in the non-farm sector (including informal and non-manufacturing firms), geocoded at the subtown level.
This work is part of the International Growth Centre’s ‘Rapid Urbanization, Rural-to-Urban Migration and Rural Development: Evidence from 8000 Indian Towns’ project
Citation
Sam Asher, Ryu Matsuura, Tobias Lunt, Paul Novosad (2019) The Socioeconomic High-resolution Rural-Urban Geographic Dataset on India (SHRUG). IGC. Reference C-89414-INC-1
Links